RAID 1 Question...

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by albertc30, Oct 18, 2009.

  1. albertc30

    albertc30 Kilobyte Poster

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    Hello everybody.
    I have this Asus M4A785TD-V EVO motherboard and it comes with onboard RAID with 5 xSATA 3 Gb/s ports Support RAID 0,1,10,JBOD.

    My question is can I have my OS XP on one SATA port on my SSD and then 2 1TB each on two SATA ports as RAID 1?

    If so, what will monitor or manage this RAID? Will it be done by the BIOS, windows software or asus raid software?

    I have very important data like holiday pictures and videos and specially my honey moon pictures and videos and can not lose these or the wife would have me n*** cut off, lol....

    Cheers everyone.
     
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  2. supernova

    supernova Gigabyte Poster

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    software volume mirroring is only really supported natively in MS server products.. hardware is better anyway

    So you have to use the software with your raid controller (hardware raid) or its option rom.

    As your RAID 1 set doesn't hold the boot or system partitions you may be able (depending on the software) to fully use the software with the controller to repair and configure the sets, if not this will have to be done from the option rom which you enter from boot. (its great if the software can do this as it saves rebooting if you have a hot swappable set-up)

    Certainly the software component will monitor it and give status / alerts for your sets.

    the software or a "agent" as sometime referred to often comes with the controllers drivers , in this case your mobos cd i guess.
     
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  3. soundian

    soundian Gigabyte Poster

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    Surely backup is the better option if all you're worried about is not getting your future fertility curtailed.
     
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  4. Sparky
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    Even with the RAID 1 setup I would still backup the data to an external drive or a DVD.
     
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  5. albertc30

    albertc30 Kilobyte Poster

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    They're on DVD mate. That was the first thing I done, you never know so to be on the safe side it has been done.

    I had just installed the asus raidxpert software and its web based. I can't create any array presumably because I do not have RAID enabled on the BIOS.
    Has anyone used this software to create and manage a RAID array?
     
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  6. supernova

    supernova Gigabyte Poster

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    I have used RAID on many AUSU mobos sorry not familiar with that model or software

    I agree Balls Before Data!

    normally the raid controller has its own option rom accessible after the main BIOS, its normally ALT+??

    eg alt+s
     
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  7. UKDarkstar
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    UKDarkstar Terabyte Poster

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    Try CTRL-F on bootup to get into the hardware RAID utility. If you have the manual that came with the m/b ASUS usually cover the RAID setup in a chapter towards the back of the manual.

    It's pretty straightforward to setup.
     
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  8. albertc30

    albertc30 Kilobyte Poster

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    I don't have the option cause I do not have the RAID controller enabled in the BIOS as of yet.
    I am waiting for 2 1TB HDD so that I can have a go at it. Right now I am a bit reluctant as I do not want to corrupt my OS in my SSD by messing about with the controllers in the BIOS.
    Thanks for the input anyways mate.
     
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  9. albertc30

    albertc30 Kilobyte Poster

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    Hello everybody.

    One more question about RAID 1.

    I know that out of 2 HDD you only see 1. It is advisable that booth HDD to be the same size or if one is bigger then the other one, lets say, 1 HDD is 500GB and the other HDD is 750GB you'd loose 250GB in this last one, at least that is what I think I have read quite a while back.

    My real question is, if one HDD fails I still have my data all in the mirrored HDD but, how do I restore my RAID array when one HDD fails? Do I do it under the OS and just hot-Swap or is it done under boot? If under boot wouldn't the new HDD and old be reformatted?

    Cheers,
     
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  10. Sparky
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    Always best to have two HDs that are the same size. If poss try and make them the same model as well.

    There should be an option to rebuild the RAID after a disk fails and you have replaced the duff disk. This varies depending on how you configured the RAID originally, this will either be in the BIOS, the RAID card itself or in RAID management software.

    Dunno if the RAID would be hot-swap job ((C) - Sparky), as this is generally found in servers. Might be wrong tho. 8)
     
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  11. albertc30

    albertc30 Kilobyte Poster

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    I think I have read somewhere that some PCI RAID controllers do support hot-swap, but then again might be wrong.
    Thanks for your help mate.
     
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  12. Sparky
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    Yup, some do mate. Worth noting that you actually need physical access to the drives when the PC is on to be hot-swappable. In some cases you might need to power down the PC and remove the drive cage to actually swap the new drive which isnt hot-swappable.
     
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  13. UKDarkstar
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    UKDarkstar Terabyte Poster

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    On ASUS m/b the hot swap is prob not available. I have rebuilt a mirrored drive on an ASUS server before now - it's all done via the BIOS; you hotkey into the RAID untility on boot-up and do it from that (not from within o/s).

    Again, read your manual - it's all in there and is very straightforward

    Link for manual download (if you don't have one)
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2009
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  14. supernova

    supernova Gigabyte Poster

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    You can normally tell with single a non-raid sata drive because they appear in safely remove hardware / removable storage so you can safely write back the write cache before removing the drive to make shore you don't loose data.

    Raid sets will however, be removable through the agent software obviously
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2009
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