RAID Confision.

[salvage-this]

I am thinking about getting another tb hard drive to match the one that I ripped out of my external when it suddenly stopped working on any computer. I have a 320gb WD that I have my os installed and all of the programs that I have installed as of now. I am looking at running my computer in either raid 0 or 1 with the two tb combined and not using the 320 or just keep it for extra storage with my os and programs installed but set the boot to my raid setup in my bios. Just in case of a failure I can still boot. I googled around for a while and read the raid 101 here but I still have a few questions about how it works/how to set it up.

1. Software or Hardware for configuring raid?

2. My motherboard says that it supports raid, but I can't find any other evidence of that other than the picture that rays raid on the box. I tried to install a program to configure it but it said that the program could not support my hardware. Any ideas? This might just mean that I need to get a raid controller.
I have a Asus M4A77TD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131603

3. With a controller that plugs into a pci slot, do i need to use the sata ports on the card or can I leave them in my motherboard? With that will I be able to notice a difference between using a sata l or sata ll ports?

4. I saw on other web pages that there is almost no benefit to using raid 1 other than having a fault tolerance. I have seen elsewhere that there is a huge benefit in read speeds, like almost double vs. a standard drive.

5. Is there a problem with running 2 hdd's in raid and another hdd alone?

6. just to check how the memory and performance stacks up
2x1tb RAID 0 = 2tb space w/increased read and write, no fault tolerance
2x1tb RAID 1 = 1tb space w/increased read, 1 fault tolerance

7. This may be a noob question, but if I have the 2tb in raid with the 320gb set aside for backup can I have the 320gb read off of the raid configuration to make essentially an auto backup? I guess kinda like a mock raid 5 but without having my raid be conformed to the lowest storage

I know that is a lot to ask but any help is appreciated!

 

[Vampiric Rouge]

1. Software or Hardware for configuring raid?

Hardware is better but it involves buying an addon card and drivers and all that fun stuff.

2. My motherboard says that it supports raid, but I can't find any other evidence of that other than the picture that rays raid on the box. I tried to install a program to configure it but it said that the program could not support my hardware. Any ideas? This might just mean that I need to get a raid controller.
I have a Asus M4A77TD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131603

That would be done though a software raid. You would have to look up the technacal docs for that specific software raid controller

3. With a controller that plugs into a pci slot, do i need to use the sata ports on the card or can I leave them in my motherboard? With that will I be able to notice a difference between using a sata l or sata ll ports?

Yes you have to use the slots on the raid controller. if you downgrade to sata l your transfer speeds will be sower.

4. I saw on other web pages that there is almost no benefit to using raid 1 other than having a fault tolerance. I have seen elsewhere that there is a huge benefit in read speeds, like almost double vs. a standard drive.

I don't think there is a read increases with raid 1, but I could be wrong I guess.

5. Is there a problem with running 2 hdd's in raid and another hdd alone?

Nope.

6. just to check how the memory and performance stacks up
2x1tb RAID 0 = 2tb space w/increased read and write, no fault tolerance
2x1tb RAID 1 = 1tb space w/increased read, 1 fault tolerance

Yup.

7. This may be a noob question, but if I have the 2tb in raid with the 320gb set aside for backup can I have the 320gb read off of the raid configuration to make essentially an auto backup? I guess kinda like a mock raid 5 but without having my raid be conformed to the lowest storage

Not anything like a raid 5... Your OS will see the raid as one drive. From there you can run the backup from the raid to the stand alone with no problem.

 

[salvage-this]

Alright I have two HDD's. My primary is a seagate baricuda 7200 1tb and the other is a WD caviar blue 7200 320gb. I want to try a raid 0 setup but I am a bit unsure of how it will turn out. So here is how I want to set it up...

I would have the WD 320gb linked with a 320gb partition on the Seagate 1tb in raid 0. Since I have already set the partition for 320gb on the Seagate, it will see it as two drives. So I will still be able to use the rest of the free space on the Seagate since the raid configuration will be limited to the 320gb partition...(I think ) So to sum it all up I would be left with a raid configuration with 640gb allocated to it and 680gb of space that I could use for backup storage. just to be clear, I would not be using the extra partition for files that the raid configuration will be using. I would put a a clone of the raid for a backup in case if a failure of the wd drive. I know that if the seagate fails I will be screwed no matter what :'(

So anyone think that that would work?

 

[jevery]

Here's the page in your manual that gives you the info you need to set up a RAID array through the southbridge chipset



Using the southbridge RAID option you won't be able to use a partitioned sector of a drive as part of your array because the chipset associates a drive with a SATA port, thus a drive connected to a particular SATA port will only be seen by the BIOS as a single drive.