P5K & RAID 1 Help?

[Chumly]

Hi,

I have the Asus P5K motherboard vanilla not the deluxe.

Can I run three hard drives such that the internal HD1 is for the OS, and the internal HD2 plus an external eSATA HD3 are in a RAID 1 configuration?

If yes, can I then access this RAID 1 configuration as a single drive via my network?

You see, I want to use this PC as a simple NAS (using the HD2 & HD3 in RAID 1) as well as using this PC as a regular machine using HD1 for the OS.

Thanks all!

PS: yep I know I could route the external eSATA connector back inside the PC case and then mount HD3 internally, but that is not what I want. The RAID on the P5K is only between the external eSATA connector on the back of the motherboard, and the internal SATA E2 connector.

Alas, the manual does not precisely specify, however it does refer to RAID sets, and does have a BIOS screen that lists all drives, and lets you choose which two are RAID'ed. As to what happens to the others I am not sure, but inclusive of the one eSATA port there are four internal SATA ports, that's promising.

 

[Intel_man]

What RAID 1 does is mirror the other harddrive....


Since you have 3 HDD's, you might want to consider yourself in using RAID 5. It offers both performance and back up abilities.

 

[Chumly]

What RAID 1 does is mirror the other harddrive....


Since you have 3 HDD's, you might want to consider yourself in using RAID 5. It offers both performance and back up abilities.

I need the eSATA HD3 for my external drive. I need RAID1. I do not want the internal HD1 to be part of the RAID array in any fashion.

The RAID function exists on the Jmicron controller. One drive connector is internal (SATA_E2) and one drive connector is external (F_ESATA on the back I/O area). The intent is to allow making RAID1 backup disks.

I'm not looking for other options, only for specifics as per my first post, much thanks!