The Raid Function

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I'm going to install new Abit kg7-Raid motherboard tomorrow and I was wondering about that raid feature. What is the best way to install two HDs? Should I use raid or what? My computer is DAW so performance of these HDs must be optimal. I have no experience of raid so help me out...

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Yes, you should use the raid function, two drives at raid 0.

here is a good description of what the differant levels of raid do. Raid 0 will give you the best performance, and will benifit you more than having two seperate hard drives. Partition them into two seperate drives afterwards if it makes you feel better.
 
Thanks. That site was great and now I understand th raid better. But should I format the main drive before installing new mb? Or should both drives be formated? It would be great to move all important files to second drive... ...I have XP if that matters.

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When I installed my RAID setup under 98se, the RAID was treated by the OS as just another storage device. I had to define partitions and format the drives using "fdisk" and "format" just like any other hard drive. My highpoint controller has its own BIOS which appears briefly on the screen right after the standard BIOS runs it's routines. Entering this "sub-BIOS" allows you to define your RAID characteristics. You may then save anything you want to the RAID drive just like you would anyother drive by specifying the path.

Now having said all that, I'm not sure it applies to XP. I think partitions, file systems, and formatting are done as part of the install with NT based operating systems. However , it is still a necessary step regardless.


Twist
 
Hang on a second now. When you've got a RAID 0, the two disks are combined to form one large volume. You won't have "two disks" anymore, but one large disk (as far as the system is concerned).

Whether this is something you'll want to do depends on a lot of factors. For one thing, the system will work best if the two drives you're using are identical, or at least close in both size and speed. Secondly, you have to weigh your risk of data loss, as it will effectively double, because the RAID cannot survive if just one drive fails.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, RAID 0 is not necessary in a DAW. If you bought the board along with two identical drives intent on using RAID, then go for it. On the other hand if you just picked up a mobo and some arbitrary drive and you're going to toss them in with an existing system, it might be much less hassle to forget RAID and just dedicate the new drive to audio, using the old drive for your OS and applications.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Hallatar said:
Thanks. That site was great and now I understand th raid better. But should I format the main drive before installing new mb? Or should both drives be formated? It would be great to move all important files to second drive... ...I have XP if that matters.

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Click to expand...

With a raid controller, the two drives will appear as one drive to the OS, it will not know that there are two physical drives. That said, IF IT WERE ME, I would format the whole thing as one big partition and be done with it. Having seperate drives for audio and os isnt as important on a system like this, its fast enough that it doesnt matter. I would probably make a seperate partition for swap space, but thats it.

If you must two partitions, then yeah, do it at first.
 
The purpose of using two drives and splitting your OS and data is not for speed, but for convenience and reliability. It is considerably easier to restore or recreate a system when the OS is on its own volume or partition, and you have a much better chance of recovering data from a dying data volume if you have your OS on seperate drive altogether.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I'll second Slack.

RAID 0 is a very dangerous config for a DAW. You can consider RAID 1 or 0+1, but a pure 0 setup is dicey at best unless you backup every hour or so.

RAID 1 also has its disadvantages: If you delete a file on one drive, it gets deleted from the other, if you catch a virus, it's promptly replicated in the second drive. I prefer large single drives with data separately (just like Slack says) and OS/apps on two drives, and I still back up every week.

Oh, yes, I don't have an antivirus program.
 
For a DAW, it's a mixed bag. Disk throughput is rarely an issue with high-performance drives, and unless you record mega tracks a split setup as suggested above is fine.

But the performance gain from a striped array is amazing, and for the video editing & audio sync work I do I wouldn't live without it. The performance gain is WELL worth it, and if you have a good backup solution or network available, this is THE way to go.
 
If you're doing video work, then heinz is absolutely correct....a striped configuration can provide a drastic improvement. Audio, on the other hand, is read from the disk as needed (as samples are very small, especially compared to video frames), and most modern drives are more than fast enough to keep up with dozens upon dozens of high resolution audio streams (e.g. 32 tracks of 24/96 only requires ~9MB/sec sustained transfer).

Slackmaster 2000
 
I'm having some second toughts. I think that I don't need raid. I use my main drive for OS and apps and second drive for audio files, just like old times. Maybe it's best for DAW...

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