Core 2 Duo

[a94cobra 0]

So I upgraded boards to get more processing power. I was using a P4 2.8 and went to a Core 2 Duo 6300.

 

Using a GV1000. I had 400gb storage using the IDE RAID. I also wanted to upgrade the storage space to something larger. SATA drives are pretty cheap nowadays. So I got 2 500gb SATA drives.

 

The new board I got is the ASUS P5B. IT has the Intel 965 chipset. Everything works good. Except...

 

The board has 6 SATA ports. But only 2 can used via RAID. One internal and one external. What is the point in that? Why would a person need and external drive hooked up to a RAID array?

 

I didn't realize this little tidbit till after trying to install the drives in RAID. So now I need a way to get the two drives in a RAID array or new board.

 

I like ASUS products(till now), but which one do I get at this point? Does the Geo work with Nforce boards? What is the difference between the 945 and 965 chipsets?

 

Is there a way to make a nested drive some how for the Geo software, so that it sees one big drive? I know I can specify more than one storage location, but another program I have causes storage issues. Geo only recycles on the current drive it is recording on.

[mcs 0]

May I ask why you want raid

is this a bank, jeweller?

 

I have heaps of systems running, if you over spec the pc you wont have issue

Use a ups (decent inline), more ram then needed, fast vga card...

 

All you have to do is pu the OS and geovision prog on a small HDD and ghost that drive

 

quick backup, takes 30 mins to install if the drive fails...

 

I am using xbox hdd's as they are cheap and range from 8-20gb and norm new as most people hack their box early

 

cheers

[a94cobra 0]

It is retail, not a bank or anything.

 

I am only using RAID to get the drives linked as one big drive for easy storage.

 

I am doing the exact same thing with the boot drive. Many 8gigs laying around from xbox's.

[a94cobra 0]

Is there a way to make a nested drive some how for the Geo software, so that it sees one big drive? I know I can specify more than one storage location, but another program I have causes storage issues. Geo only recycles on the current drive it is recording on.

 

Also Geo has a problem nesting video storage. Claims it already has a log on that drive.

[CollinR 0]

When you installed XP did you press F6 and install the RAID drivers when it asked for them?

[a94cobra 0]

No need. I installed XP on a IDE drive(non-Raid). Trying to use the SATA ports as Raid for video storage.

 

There are 6 SATA ports on this board. And only one internal and the external port are the RAID ports. Something which is, in my opinion, designed very dumb.

 

So either I run a cable from one of the drive out the case to the back, get a board that isn't designed wrong, or figure out how to nest the second drive in the first one so that Geo can use both as one.

[CollinR 0]

It only partially matters which volume the OS is on for this stuff to work properly you must press F6 and install the drivers before installing Windows. Often you can't get 3.0GB out of SATAII without RAID in a single or multiple drive system if you fail to install the drivers in the correct order. I don't know why this is but I know it is. IIRC it matters much more if you have it plugged into the IC8 SATA controller or the JMicron controller. Since you say you used PATA you are on the JMicron controller. Either way I haven't seen one installed correctly after the fact.

 

Download to test.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/HDTach_d672.html

 

I also see now, those two ports were designed for multiplier use. You can look at each one as 4 SATA ports. You want to find a drive caddy with an internal port multiplier.

 

Unfortunately those drive caddies are more expensive then another motherboard. Further if I was going that route I would want a Silicon Image controller rather then JMB.

 

It sucks but you have to really read the specs before you buy, I have done it and so has just about everyone else who has built a few machines.

 

 

EDIT:

They make SATA > SATAe PCI slot fillers that would prevent you from using a SATA cable through the case. It is designed to help in situations like this.

 

Have you tried the Intel Matrix controllers?

 

If you look at the southbridge does it say.

 

82801HH

 

or

 

82801HR

 

or

 

82801??

 

The ICH8 has been tested and should have RAID 0, 1, 5 and 0 + 1 capabilites ASIDE from the JMB controller you are currently tring. If this is the case just a driver redo will get you doing. I have never tried it on that board but they would have to specifically disable it if it is a HH or better yet HR chip.

[a94cobra 0]

Ok, I checked the speed. Getting between 185-191mb on each of the storage drives.

 

Seems this board has the JMB363 and the IC8H.

 

If the IC8H has the capabilities where would one look for that driver? Intel site?

[a94cobra 0]

I found nothing on the net about getting the IC8H to work as a RAID.

 

Trying various forms of nesting the second drive into the first one proved useless. I could make a folder on the first drive as the second drive. But Geo software only saw it as one drive and would complain that the database is already present.

 

So what I did finally was to just use XP Pro to stripe the drives together. Something i didn't even know I could with XP.

 

So the question comes in as to whether the performance is more or less than hardware RAID-0.

[CollinR 0]

http://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/datashts/31305602.pdf

 

page # 44

 

 

You need to look at the Southbridge and see which number it actually has, if it ends like the numbers I posted above reinstall Windows and load the matrix drivers.

 

 

You might also look at the Tom's Hardware review of the ICH8 vs ICH7 too. I believe they did their RAID testing on a chipset with another different number ending, they specifically mention it is not the ICH8r that has more RAID functions.

 

Windows is software RAID, if something happens to the Windows install your RAID array is probably borked. It's not too bad but performance is not it's high point, ease of setup is it's domain.

[a94cobra 0]

I will do some looking there and see what I can find. I agree with you on the software RAID.