Another new build noob question

[mb]

I appreciated all the help I got on my previous question about
installing Win 7 on a new computer build, which as I mentioned, I'm
going to take a crack at despite not being a whiz.

I considered the advice to get a WD Raptor for my boot drive and use my
current WD Caviar Black 1TB for data only. I think I'm going to go with
a second WD Caviar Black drive in RAID 0, especially since this is a
brand new motherboard/processor (ASUS P6T/Intel i7 930) and the
opportunity to double my current capacity.

My question is, do I need to reformat my current drive first before
installation with the second drive or will the drivers that come with
the motherboard handle that, create the stripe, etc., all in one action?

I installed Win 7 RC on another system with two 150 mb Raptors in RAID 0
and it was a bit of a disaster, so I'm anxious to get any advice I can.
Thanks.

mb

 

[mb]

And a quick follow-up question. My current WD Caviar Black has a 32 mb
cache. I see newer models with a 64 mb cache. Can these still be
paired in RAID 0? Would that be a waste of the newer drive? Thanks.

mb

 

[Seth]

And a quick follow-up question. My current WD Caviar Black has a 32 mb
cache. I see newer models with a 64 mb cache. Can these still be
paired in RAID 0? Would that be a waste of the newer drive? Thanks.

I'll answer both here...

To the first post, the "formatting" of the RAID is done in BIOS. You will
have to enter a menu system to create the RAID. Then, when you boot from
the Windows 7 DVD and get to the where do you want to install Windows page,
you will just see a single unpartitioned disk (if you see no disks, you will
have to hit "Load Drivers" and go through that process to get the support
files loaded to see the disk.

As for the differing cache sizes, no problem. Consumer level RAID equipment
is not that picky where it requires all devices be 100% identical. Heck,
you can use 1tb drives from different companies for what you are doing.

 

[mb]

Thanks for the response. My understanding of RAID is limited and I
think I left out a key piece of information. My main concern is that
one of the drives I plan on using in a RAID 0 configuration is currently
my boot drive and loaded with data. Do I have to format that drive,
which I can do in another system, before setting up the RAID
configuration in the BIOS or will the configuration process simply
ignore the existing data allowing me to then do a clean install of Win 7
after I boot the DVD?

My ASUS P6T manual says, "...requires two identical new drives for this
option." I'm not concerned by the word "identical" as explained by the
previous poster, but the word "new" troubles me as if they're saying
"clean data free drives." Thanks again.

mb

 

[Vic RR Garcia]

Thanks for the response. My understanding of RAID is limited and I
think I left out a key piece of information. My main concern is that
one of the drives I plan on using in a RAID 0 configuration is currently
my boot drive and loaded with data. Do I have to format that drive,
which I can do in another system, before setting up the RAID
configuration in the BIOS or will the configuration process simply
ignore the existing data allowing me to then do a clean install of Win 7
after I boot the DVD?

My ASUS P6T manual says, "...requires two identical new drives for this
option." I'm not concerned by the word "identical" as explained by the
previous poster, but the word "new" troubles me as if they're saying
"clean data free drives." Thanks again.

mb

Boot drive + big hdd's + on-board Raid 0 = DISASTER !!!!!

Yes, you can do it, the BIOS setup for RAID will take care of the
formatting and stripping of the drives (it does not matter what is
currently on those drives), of course all the data will be GONE.

But, WHY ???? Raid 0 will only give you a LOT of problems for some
marginal speed-up gain.
Every time there is a problem and the Raid fail to initialize properly,
you'll have to re-do the Raid and reinstall EVERYTHING....

 

[Seth]

Thanks for the response. My understanding of RAID is limited and I
think I left out a key piece of information. My main concern is that
one of the drives I plan on using in a RAID 0 configuration is currently
my boot drive and loaded with data. Do I have to format that drive,
which I can do in another system, before setting up the RAID
configuration in the BIOS or will the configuration process simply
ignore the existing data allowing me to then do a clean install of Win 7
after I boot the DVD?

That said, all RAID adapters I've seen will remove the existing partition
for you if necessary. So you don't need to put the drive into a different
system to blank it.

My ASUS P6T manual says, "...requires two identical new drives for this
option." I'm not concerned by the word "identical" as explained by the
previous poster, but the word "new" troubles me as if they're saying
"clean data free drives." Thanks again.

More than likely that is just there to avoid the questions that many
inexperienced people have when they do RAID with different sized drives and
the RAID set comes out to a smaller size than they expected. For example,
someone might take a 500GB and 1TB drive, set for RAID0 and expect 1.5TB but
will instead only get 1TB (RAID0 yields smallest size drive X quantity, so
in this example 500GBx2).

You should be able to attach the drives to the appropriate SATA ports, enter
into the RAID BIOS and create the RAID set.

 

[DanS]

Boot drive + big hdd's + on-board Raid 0 = DISASTER
!!!!!

Yes, you can do it, the BIOS setup for RAID will take care
of the formatting and stripping of the drives (it does not
matter what is currently on those drives), of course all
the data will be GONE.

But, WHY ???? Raid 0 will only give you a LOT of problems
for some marginal speed-up gain.

I guess some people just want to do things for the sake of doing
them.

I was going to ask why the OP thought he needed RAID0, but
decided not to, since people are just going to do what they're
going to do anyway.

Maybe the OP is going to buy a third big HD to do nightly
backups.

 

[Seth]

Boot drive + big hdd's + on-board Raid 0 = DISASTER !!!!!

Yes, you can do it, the BIOS setup for RAID will take care of the
formatting and stripping of the drives (it does not matter what is
currently on those drives), of course all the data will be GONE.

But, WHY ???? Raid 0 will only give you a LOT of problems for some
marginal speed-up gain.
Every time there is a problem and the Raid fail to initialize properly,
you'll have to re-do the Raid and reinstall EVERYTHING....

All mine run fine. What hardware are you seeing to be error prone?

 

[Vic RR Garcia]

All mine run fine. What hardware are you seeing to be error prone?

No doubt that some will run fine, as long as they are done right, for
what the OP said about his PC level .... I don't think he is at that level.
Most problems came from consumer type setups, e.x.:

Soft-Raid using on-board controller.
Green HDD's that go into sleep mode and timeout, so controller mark RAID
as fail.
Soft errors on big HDD's, normally recovered, but kill the array.
Win7/Vista/XP does not like to boot from a Raid drive.
No UPS, electrical problem ==> corrupted array.
Raid 0 provides NO redundancy at all.
And so on.

Of course, all those problems can be alleviated and a lot of enterprise
setups boot from Raid arrays, but, those are well planned and using the
right hardware, not the case at most consumer setups.

 

[dot]

No doubt that some will run fine, as long as they are done right, for
what the OP said about his PC level .... I don't think he is at that level.
Most problems came from consumer type setups, e.x.:

Soft-Raid using on-board controller.
Green HDD's that go into sleep mode and timeout, so controller mark RAID
as fail.
Soft errors on big HDD's, normally recovered, but kill the array.
Win7/Vista/XP does not like to boot from a Raid drive.
No UPS, electrical problem ==> corrupted array.
Raid 0 provides NO redundancy at all.
And so on.

Of course, all those problems can be alleviated and a lot of enterprise
setups boot from Raid arrays, but, those are well planned and using the
right hardware, not the case at most consumer setups.

Im with the why bother crowd too, drives are robust these days but all
the problems ive had with raid is down to the controllers flaking out
for one reason or another and with SSDs now outpacing a consumer raid 0
then why on earth not just buy an SSD and save on reliability, power,
noise, and even cost.

to really ride the bleeding edge, raid some SSDs, otherwise the only
consumer raid id ever advise now (with mechanical drives) is raid 1 for
a backup/media store

 

[Ken Blake]

Im with the why bother crowd too, drives are robust these days but all
the problems ive had with raid is down to the controllers flaking out
for one reason or another and with SSDs now outpacing a consumer raid 0
then why on earth not just buy an SSD and save on reliability, power,
noise, and even cost.

I'm with you entirely. Raid 0 is not a great way to go.

to really ride the bleeding edge, raid some SSDs, otherwise the only
consumer raid id ever advise now (with mechanical drives) is raid 1 for
a backup/media store

But I disagree with you here. Raid 1 is even worse, for the great
majority of people. RAID 1 (mirroring) is *not* a backup solution.

RAID 1 uses two or more drives, each a duplicate of the others, to
provide redundancy, not backup. It's used in situations (almost always
within corporations, not in homes) where any downtown can't be
tolerated, because the way it works is that if one drive fails the
other takes over seamlessly. Although some people thing of RAID 1 as a
backup technique, that is *not* what it is, since it's subject to
simultaneous loss of the original and the mirror to many of the most
common dangers threatening your data--severe power glitches, nearby
lightning strikes, virus attacks, theft of the computer, etc. Most
companies that use RAID 1 also have a strong external backup plan in
place.

"Why RAID is (usually) a Terrible Idea"
http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles?&id=29


Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003

 

[Seth]

No doubt that some will run fine, as long as they are done right, for what
the OP said about his PC level .... I don't think he is at that level.
Most problems came from consumer type setups, e.x.:

Soft-Raid using on-board controller.

While I won't use onboard for a server, for desktops I've found them to be
fine, as long as one heeds the caveats.

Green HDD's that go into sleep mode and timeout, so controller mark RAID
as fail.

Yup, gotta turn that power saving stuff off.

Soft errors on big HDD's, normally recovered, but kill the array.

Haven't seen that yet so I don't know how prevalent it actually is, or is it
mostly the type of "heard from my friends, hairdresser cousin..."

Win7/Vista/XP does not like to boot from a Raid drive.

Really? As long as the drivers are available (not often back in XP days, but
quite often from Vista till now) the OS doesn't care. As long as the proper
Mass Storage controller is supported, it's fine.

No UPS, electrical problem ==> corrupted array.

Can have that without RAID.

Raid 0 provides NO redundancy at all.

Well neither does single drive. Having RAID, especially RAID0 does not
change that. Always do backups of important data regardless of the storage
type.

 

[mb]

Again, thanks for all the valuable information. My main, well, only
reason for considering RAID 0 is the speed increase, particularly in
opening applications I noticed with my old 150 gb Raptors in a system
some years ago, which seemed considerably faster than anything I'd had
before. Now from what I've read here and just today in some on line
reviews of the WD1002FAEX with the 64 mb cache it sounds as if any
significant speed increase no longer exists. In fact, one reviewer said
two of the drives in RAID 0 ran slower than only one, although he didn't
offer much in the way of explanation. I'm left to assume the larger the
capacity of the drive, the smaller the impact on speed offered by RAID
0, although I have no technical understanding of why that might be.

I'm now inclined to make the new WD Black with 64 mb cache my only boot
drive, with the older WD Black with 32 mb cached a data storage device.

Thanks again.

mb

 

[Vic RR Garcia]

While I won't use onboard for a server, for desktops I've found them
to be fine, as long as one heeds the caveats.

And that's the problem, MOST people NEVER read the manual.

Yup, gotta turn that power saving stuff off.

Again, most people forget that.

Haven't seen that yet so I don't know how prevalent it actually is, or
is it mostly the type of "heard from my friends, hairdresser cousin..."

Nope, experience, been working on computers since 1976, when a 40 MBy,
yes MegaByte, HDD was the size of a big fridge, why do you think that
most Enterprise class HDD's are still smaller than 1 TBy, that's your clue.

Really? As long as the drivers are available (not often back in XP
days, but quite often from Vista till now) the OS doesn't care. As
long as the proper Mass Storage controller is supported, it's fine.

Correct, and the track record of mess-up drivers on Windows is not
something to brag about.

No UPS, electrical problem ==> corrupted array.

Can have that without RAID.

Sure, but, No-Raid, just one corrupted file, Raid 0, a two disk array
gone, big difference.

Well neither does single drive. Having RAID, especially RAID0 does
not change that. Always do backups of important data regardless of the
storage type.

Except that mos people relate Raid with redundancy and fool-proof, a
sure path to disaster, and Raid 0 increase the probability of failure by
an exponential factor over JBOD.

 

[PeeCee]

I'm with you entirely. Raid 0 is not a great way to go.





But I disagree with you here. Raid 1 is even worse, for the great
majority of people. RAID 1 (mirroring) is *not* a backup solution.

RAID 1 uses two or more drives, each a duplicate of the others, to
provide redundancy, not backup. It's used in situations (almost always
within corporations, not in homes) where any downtown can't be
tolerated, because the way it works is that if one drive fails the
other takes over seamlessly. Although some people thing of RAID 1 as a
backup technique, that is *not* what it is, since it's subject to
simultaneous loss of the original and the mirror to many of the most
common dangers threatening your data--severe power glitches, nearby
lightning strikes, virus attacks, theft of the computer, etc. Most
companies that use RAID 1 also have a strong external backup plan in
place.

"Why RAID is (usually) a Terrible Idea"
http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles?&id=29


Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003

Have got to back Ken and to some extent Dot on this.
For domestic and SOHO use RAID is more trouble that it's worth

I can think of four machines with RAID 1 (mirror) setups I've supported,
results have been mixed to say the least.

Problems ranged from a dying drive causing software corruptions on the other
drive, RAID's not rebuilding because software was missing to a machine being
down for over a week while the suppliers tried to find what was wrong with
the hardware (nothing in the end) and a new machine delivered without RAID
set up even though the build sheet clearly required it.

As for using RAID 1 as a defacto backup scheme, experience has taught me it
simply isn't good enough.
The better scheme is to do a regular backup, coupled with an image of drive
C: when ever major upgrades are made to critical software.
That way imaging to a new C: drive and dropping the latest copy of the
client database into place isn't going to take much longer (if at all) than
waiting for the RAID 1 array to rebuild.

As for RAID 0 performance gains, I found the article Ken pointed to had some
compelling logic to it.
Bring on the SSD's

Best
Paul.

 

[Char Jackson]

Nope, experience, been working on computers since 1976, when a 40 MBy,
yes MegaByte, HDD was the size of a big fridge, why do you think that
most Enterprise class HDD's are still smaller than 1 TBy, that's your clue.

The year was 2000, I was putting in a 4TB EMC array for a project at
work. At the time, 4TB was huge and by far our biggest array to date,
but just a mere 10 years later I have over 16TB in my PC, with plenty
more storage scattered across the home network.

Anyway, to your point about drive size, we agonized over 9GB drives
versus 18GB drives, eventually settling on 9GB drives, the theory
being that more drive spindles would boost performance, (since drive
I/O is usually the bottleneck), and when we did lose a drive, we
didn't want to lose 18GB at a time.

In retrospect, I have to smile at where we were back then, but at the
time it was big stuff.