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RAID
Author
I couldnt think of a better place for this, I hope I''m not cross-posting.
I am building a new computer and it will have RAID and i want to set up an array or harddrives and stripe it. (Thats what you call it when it splits the information up across both of them, right?)
I don''t have alot of money, So i can only afford two harddrives of the size I''m getting right now (40 gig), but I would like four. After I have installed the two and they are running, can I add another two later and retain my data?
Yeah, you can add 2 more with the data intact. When you get 2 more hard disks, we''ll tell you how :-)
Author
on more question, sorta.
is RAID only for use on SCSI harddrives? or would it use ATA/100 maybe? Can ATA/100 drives be installed in a chain like SCSI?
is RAID only for use on SCSI harddrives? or would it use ATA/100 maybe? Can ATA/100 drives be installed in a chain like SCSI?
With an IDE RAID controller, you can use IDE drives. For example, my motherboard (Asus A7V133) has onboard RAID, so I could plug in a few ATA100 drives.
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Martee
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Martee
Yes, get a FastTrak 100 IDE RAID controller card for your computer. I use them for my hosting company servers and they work really well. You can rebuild the RAID array anytime you want as well.
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Michael Tanczos
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Michael Tanczos
promise makes the best ide raid controllers, afaik.
if you are running raid0 (striping), once you create the array thats it, you will need to destroy and recreate the array to add more drives. not to say you couldnt just add another drive array, provided your controller supports it.
im not sure but using raid5 or some similar level might allow you to add non-functional drives, and actually not have those drives in the system. then when you get those drives you can plug them in and mark them functional and let the controller rebuild the array to span the extra drives as well.
limits to the above: raid5 requires three disks. second, i believe you can only have one failed/non functional disk in order for the array to work. a way around this would be the ability to add a non functional drive to the array after it has been created and then again, let the controller rebuild the array.
make sure you read into how the different raid levels work. decide whether you really really want raid, and make sure you have a reason why -- speed or reliability are the two most common. the reason you want raid will determine which raid level would be best for you, how many drives you need, and what kind of drives you buy. when buying the drives think about seek times and average transfer rates as well as capacity.
scsi raid is usually better because of the added features of scsi (TCQ comes to mind). with IDE though, do *not* put more than one drive on a single cable, even if the combined throughput rates of the drives do not exceed the interface transfer rate - you will lose performance. promise''s supertrak controller brings a lot of the extra scsi functionality to ide, but for a price. id recommend the fasttrak tx4, and hotswap bays if they are appropriate for the raid level you are choosing (hotswap on raid0 is just plain stupid).
linux btw, supports software raid. ie you dont need a raid controller, it is done in software on the cpu. i happened to have two identical ide drives laying around, so i simply put them each on their own ide cable and am happily running software raid0 on them.
raid is more complex than it seems. do your research and make sure you understand everything about it before you jump in.
the most appropriate place, btw, for this post would be another site dedicated to hardware. im not familiar with any, so sorry i cant point you to any off the top of my head.
saai
if you are running raid0 (striping), once you create the array thats it, you will need to destroy and recreate the array to add more drives. not to say you couldnt just add another drive array, provided your controller supports it.
im not sure but using raid5 or some similar level might allow you to add non-functional drives, and actually not have those drives in the system. then when you get those drives you can plug them in and mark them functional and let the controller rebuild the array to span the extra drives as well.
limits to the above: raid5 requires three disks. second, i believe you can only have one failed/non functional disk in order for the array to work. a way around this would be the ability to add a non functional drive to the array after it has been created and then again, let the controller rebuild the array.
make sure you read into how the different raid levels work. decide whether you really really want raid, and make sure you have a reason why -- speed or reliability are the two most common. the reason you want raid will determine which raid level would be best for you, how many drives you need, and what kind of drives you buy. when buying the drives think about seek times and average transfer rates as well as capacity.
scsi raid is usually better because of the added features of scsi (TCQ comes to mind). with IDE though, do *not* put more than one drive on a single cable, even if the combined throughput rates of the drives do not exceed the interface transfer rate - you will lose performance. promise''s supertrak controller brings a lot of the extra scsi functionality to ide, but for a price. id recommend the fasttrak tx4, and hotswap bays if they are appropriate for the raid level you are choosing (hotswap on raid0 is just plain stupid).
linux btw, supports software raid. ie you dont need a raid controller, it is done in software on the cpu. i happened to have two identical ide drives laying around, so i simply put them each on their own ide cable and am happily running software raid0 on them.
raid is more complex than it seems. do your research and make sure you understand everything about it before you jump in.
the most appropriate place, btw, for this post would be another site dedicated to hardware. im not familiar with any, so sorry i cant point you to any off the top of my head.
saai
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