A Few RAID Questions

[Stagnant7]

Hi Folks...
I am installing a RAID controller at the moment (for RAID 0 Setup) and am sorting it all out kinda ok. I am using two Seagate ATA/100 120gb drives for the RAID and budget PCI card (silicon image chip). I also stil have my original Seagate 40gb drive. However i am still shady on a few things:

1.
(quote from RAID article from PCMECH) "Grab some standard IDE ribbon cables and connect your two hard drives to your RAID controller card. For two drive configurations, use one cable per drive, and attach each drive to its own channel on the card. For four-drive configurations, use a cable per 2 drives, just like you would with a standard master/slave setup."

On my RAID controller card it has two channels, and in the manual it says: Primary channel, drive 0/1 (Master: Drive C and Slave: Drive D) and Secondary channel, drive 2/3 (Master: Drive E and Slave: Drive F).

I have already plugged in both of my new 120gb drives to the primary channel (drive 0 and 1) and set one as master and one as slave, (using 'cable select' jumper on each of the drives) and i only used one Ultra ATA cable (ie plug black pins into master, grey into slave and blue into controller. This is currently working but i fear it isn't the best way ...is it the best way? perhaps not?

OR

Should i plug in one of my new 120gb drives to the primary channel and the other to the secondary channel and set both
to master which seems to be indicated in the PCMECH raid article.

If it is indeed better to use both channels and set both drives as master do i use two ultra ide cables and then plug the black pins into each of the two drives and the blue of each cable into the primary and secondary channels of the Controller card (and leave the grey pins by their lonesome)? Should i set the jumpers on the two drives to 'cable select' or 'master' (is their any difference?)

2.
I currently have my OS on my 40gb hard drive. would it be benificial to put the OS on the 'RAIDED' drives, most likely in a separate partition? does it only affect boot time? (i know about the problem of 'if one drive ****s up in RAID 0 then they both **** up' but seriously do arrays always **** up? i no that there is twice the chance of drives ****ing up in a RAID configuration but isn't this just 2*the very slim change of a HD ****ing up?). Also if i should have the OS on the RAID drives how do i get it done?. Can I just simply install Win XP onto a partition on the raided drives (while still having it on my 40gb drive) and then say format the 40gb drive? i think so eh....?

3.
For me to reap the benifits of a RAID configuration should i install all my programs on the RAID drives? ie if i have say my sound forge audio editing program on my 40gb drive and i do some audio editing...will i not be reaping the benifits of RAID?

4.
The drives are now really close together in the drive cages in the PC case (about 50mm separating them) is this OK?

I appreciate any feed back on my queries

Thanks.

[mike breck]

If it is indeed better to use both channels and set both drives as master do i use two ultra ide cables and then plug the black pins into each of the two drives and the blue of each cable into the primary and secondary channels of the Controller card (and leave the grey pins by their lonesome)? Should i set the jumpers on the two drives to 'cable select' or 'master' (is their any difference?)

Separate channels is best. Jumper each to Cable Select and connect each to the black connector on each ATA66/100 80 wire cable. Cable Select gives better performance.

Better to keep the OS on the 40GB on the motherboard controller. Just put your programs and data on the RAID. You might also want to use part of the 40GB for data backup. RAID 0 is for pure performance; however, if the array goes down, you've lost everything on the drives.

A good back-up method, whether to another HD or CD-Rs is essential with RAID 0. If you want some form of data integrity, then you are better using RAID 1 where you mirror the data to both drives.

I mention this so you understand the full implications of RAID 0.

Whether drives can fitted close together, depends on the drives. Some drives seem to run hotter than others. I've certainly run two 30GB Maxtors close together with no ill effects.

If you have a spare drive bay, then you could separate them and leave the bay in between empty. If not, then I wouldn't worry about it.

Lots of us are running four HDs without problems. If it does cause overheating problems then you can always get drive bay coolers.

However, the first most important thing is to make sure you have a good flow of air in the case with one 80mm case bottom front (sucking air in) and one 80mm fan top/back (exhausting hot air). That should keep the case temp down
and the components cooler.

HTH

[Stagnant7]

Thanks a lot HTH that cleared everything up...