Asus a7v266e w/raid

[Gorillaz]

What is RAID??? And how can I optimize my system using it? I've got this mobo: asus a7v266e and it's got optional raid, optional audio and no LAN. The specs of my system include:
60 GB Seagate HDD
256 MB DDR
LITEON 24x CR-RW

Please reply with any suggestions or comments that you have. Thanks

 

[Locutus4657]

If you have or plan to get a system with built in raid support what you have to do to take advantage of it is buy two (or more) hard drives and use the software that should have come with the board to set the raid up on the two disks attached. What raid does is it splits the file system, thus the reads and writes, between the two (or more) hard drives significantly improving the speed of your HD through put and also doubling storage.

 

[FishTankX]

If it's an Seagate ATAIV then forget it. I've heard lots of problems with seagate Baracuda ATAIV drives in RAID configuration on a RAID controller. It seems that the raid contorllers can't keep up with the harddrive and it has to read everything twice. Can result in an almost 50% preformance *hit*! OUCH!

 

[cyclones]

Unless you have a specific need for a Raid array.....don't do it !
These systems are mainly for document security in case of really bad system crashes.
They let you rebuild your data.
Where you have a great need for reclaiming data this is of use.
To the 99.9% of home users not in business or working from home.....it's wasted.
If you really need to know more..talk to your friendly neighbourhood systems analyst.

 

[Gorillaz]

so correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying there's no need for me to get the asus motherboard, a7v266e. I might as well purchase the a7v266. Or are both board significantly different w/out the raid? I have read good reviews about the a7v266e board and most of it's highlights talk about the raid aspect. Now how does Raid 0 differ from 1? Thanks for all the input.

 

[rominl]

i wouldn't agree with cyclones. go out and buy an athlon 1900+ system with 512MB ddr, which is not uncommon nowadays, you will notice that hdd becomes the bottleneck. and raid is the only way out until faster hdd appears.

Gorillaz, there are difference between raid 1 and raid 0, and there are actually raid 10 and 5 as well (they might not be supported by the controller on the mobo though). raid 0 basically uses two hdds, read and write to them at the same time to double the speed. in raid 1, it duplicates the content of one drive to another as a backup. they both have pros and cons. you can read the following AT review for more info:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.html?i=1491

 

[cyclones]

I would like to know what you would be doing at home ,that requires such
HDD speed?
Bottlenecks .....?
Only if you are dedicated to speed tests.
Even the chaps in the F16s dont need that much oomph!
Come on tell us what you do that gives you bottlenecks on a
7200rpm HDD at home.....I really am curious.

 

[Gorillaz]

I read the article rominl recommended on RAID and the mere fact that you can increase speeds using RAID 0 warrants anyone's desire of that technology.

I was thinking about getting an ethernet card, but there are so many to choose from and being an amateur in this field, I decided I'd ask this friendly forum. My mobo's on the way and I'm pumped. The raid capabilities should allow me to build a more efficient system.

 

[rominl]

well keep in mind, using two hdd for raid 0 effective double the chances of hdd failure (coz' if one of the hdds is dead, the whole thing is dead), so there's always a downturn.

for ethernet card, all of them are pretty much the same. a 50 bucks 3com is nothing that much different from a 10 bucks linksys imho.

cyclones, i don't do much with my system, but encode movies, ftp servers, sometimes photoshop, transfering files between computers....... these stuff are pretty normal i guess.

 

[cyclones]

Gorillaz may now be thinking this is a good thing to go for.
Like I said earlier, if you have a realtime reason to do a RAID
configuration with a home system......fine.
Now excuse me but....if Mr Gorillaz is needing to ask what a RAID
and LAN is in a forum, I feel that a lot more exposure to the technology
is required before the "fun" of multiple drives on a RAID system is contemplated.
This in no way infers that the technology is brainstorming, although
on a scale of difficulty I think it is well past half -way up the scale.
When you have 250 "IT typists" inputing data at the same time for
critical reasons like banking/credit card transactions and the like, the
need is obvious for speed and security.
From my home looking out to sea in Cornwall UK, with nothing to do
all day, perhaps the need for any more speed is satisfied with a jar or two
of CIDER !
Happy New Year

 

[Gorillaz]

I'd like to make it clear that I don't NEED to ask what RAID and LAN is in a forum. I am and was infact aware of what this was. I was merely hoping someone would clear up some questions I had and the article did just that. Additionaly I know what LAN is. But I'm sure you realise that no one is an expert on every single brand's pros and cons. I was hoping someone would say what I had experienced: 'they're all pretty much the same.'

Secondly, my reason for this article was to decide whether it was worth getting the motherboard with raid or not. Ironically I got it for Christmas. And you don't have to be a space cadet to know that wasted potential is not a good thing.

Happy Holidays

 

[senior guy]

Gorillaz:

I would agree that a RAID setup is not for most people...

RAID 0 gets you about 15% additional performace with twice the risk of failure.
RAID 1 increases data reliability as it 'mirrors' all writes to disk, but it is very slow.
RAID 1+0 overcomes both objections but it is just too expensive (4-drives is a minimum rqmt.)!

That said, the A7V266-E's RAID controller can also be used as an extra pair of normal IDE dual-channels. That can come in very handy, and can be used to separate multiple hard drives for better performance!

 

[cyclones]

Your opening line on this subject was "What is RAID???".
My comments were directed on the premise that this was the current state of your
knowledge on the matter of using a RAID system.
I agree and concur with "Senior Guy" that this seems not to be the course of action for you.
To achieve anything like the 15% speed increase you would need to use another similer
HDD to that which you are using......ie....another 60gb Seagate.
This will give you 120gb of disc space.
A previous respondent(Fish Tank X) has already told you of the problems you may have using these drives.
If you are not a budding Steve Spielberg , this really seems quite a lot of space.....
even for one who is not a space cadet eh?

 

[Kadarin]

<< so correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying there's no need for me to get the asus motherboard, a7v266e. I might as well purchase the a7v266... >>



Wanted to interject a correction here: The A7V266 and the A7V266-E use different chipsets from Via. The A7V266 uses the older KT266 chipset, while the A7V266-E uses the higher-performing KT266A. I realize this is old news, but I just wanted to clarify.

-j

 

[rbV5]

<< Come on tell us what you do that gives you bottlenecks on a
7200rpm HDD at home.....I really am curious.
>>



How about analog video capture? Raw full resolution(720x480 NTSC) AVI with CD audio requires well over 20MB/sec Sustained data transfer rate, while my 7200rpm Maxtor can do that for shorter periods, try doing it for over 2hours without dropping frames, maybe you will, maybe you might not quite get it, real PITA if you drop a few frames. The extra performance overhead of a RAID0 array does make a difference, you don't drop frames, and the risk failure on a capture array (temp storage) isn't any more than a single drive (not likely to lose both drives at the same time.) you may loose the capture you're working on, but buy another drive and your array is back in business. Niche use maybe, but usefull for me.

 

[WhiteWizard]

First: I know nothing, but I can tell you that one single IBM Desktar 15Gb ATA100 7200 delivers 21000 points in Sisot Sandra 2000 Hard Disk benchmark, and once I added my second disk in the promise controller setted as RAID 0 in my A7V133, the performance was more than 35000, I keep it, even since installing WinXP was a pain int the ....



Alejandro

 

[Gorillaz]

<<
If you are not a budding Steve Spielberg , this really seems quite a lot of space.....
even for one who is not a space cadet eh? >>



niiiiice I guess Raid 0 is not for me then. Cheers.

 

[cyclones]

I really am pleased to hear that Gorillaz.
I was starting to get a scenario in my head that you would now go for a FOUR HDD system !
The idea of 4 x 60gb Deskstars wizzing round made me wonder what power supply and
cooling system would fit into your existing case. With all the other add-on's it might be
cheaper to buy Sun System!
Happy New Year to you and the family