Hello everyone. Havn't written a guide in a long time, but, here it goes!! Hope I still got it 
.
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RAID 0 - Performance at the cost of reliability.
RAID 0 is where you take two physical HDD's, and stripe them, making them appear as one virtual HDD. This, while pracitally doubling the performance of your hard drive speed, doubles the change of massive data loss.
With RAID 0, say you copy a file onto your "hard drive."
Say the file has 6 bit's.
So if one HDD fails, you loose it ALL.
RAID 1 - Reliability at the cost of performance.
RAID 1 is where you mirror the HDD's. This double's the reliability of your data, while the read & write speed can be the same as one single HDD, or even slower.
^^Soz for the shoddy example, but it basically double's everything, so if one HDD fail's, you have all your data on the other. Plug in a new formatted drive and it copy's itself back over
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RAID 0+1, & RAID 5 - Performance and reliability!
RAID 0+1 involves four HDD's. Two are striped while mirrored, so the data is split and archived on the secondary HDD's!! RAID 5 usually is more cost effective, yet a bit less reliable. It involves three HDD's, and if one fail's, it rebuilds the missing files. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
What we're going to be looking at today is how to set up, RAID 0, specifically.
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Setting It Up!!
Everyone's BIOS will be different, that's a given...so read up on it, in your Motherboard Manual/Quick Start Guide.
Here's some shot's of my BIOS and how to enable it.
My RAID Menu is in
Integrated Perhipherals
Once it's all enabled, save & exit.
Note, nVRAID access key is F10.
So, if you have an nForce 3 or 4...press F10 like mad at the post screen.
You will come to a menu. It's very self explanitory, just set it all up!!
Here's my shot's.
It should look similar to that when you're finished.
Now, when setting up XP, you will need either your mobo's nVRAID floppy or a CD-ROM that's bootable, that came with the mobo. I know some ASUS mobo's come with bootable CD-Rom's for the RAID Drivers.
Fire up XP setup, make sure the floppy is in when you "press any key to continue."
When you see the screen, like this,
PRESS F6 LIKE MAD untill something else appears down there.
It will install a few things and then the driver selection will pop up. Refer to your MOBO manual to see what ones you need.
Once that's completed, just format the RAID'ed drive like normally, and install xp!!
Make sure to install your nVidia Chipset Drivers ASAP when you get into window's, that should be your #1 priority.
When booting, you may notice this bar.
It load's across the screen. Here's a shot from my computer, when it was just about finished loading.
It takes 2-3 second's, thats it, then it goes to regular XP boot. It only does that when I'm RAID'ed, so I'm guessing it's loading the RAID drivers.
But, now, you're just about done!! It may take a few times for you to get it right, it did for me..just don't give up, it's WELL WORTH IT in the end.
Enjoy your newly kickarse HDD setup!!
.--
RAID 0 - Performance at the cost of reliability.
RAID 0 is where you take two physical HDD's, and stripe them, making them appear as one virtual HDD. This, while pracitally doubling the performance of your hard drive speed, doubles the change of massive data loss.
With RAID 0, say you copy a file onto your "hard drive."
Say the file has 6 bit's.
Code:
6 Bit's
HDD1 - HDD2
Bit 1 Bit 2
Bit 3 Bit 4
Bit 5 Bit 6So if one HDD fails, you loose it ALL.
RAID 1 - Reliability at the cost of performance.
RAID 1 is where you mirror the HDD's. This double's the reliability of your data, while the read & write speed can be the same as one single HDD, or even slower.
Code:
6 Bit's
HDD1 - HDD2
Bit 1 Bit 1
Bit 2 Bit 2
Bit 3 Bit 3
Bit 4 Bit 4
Bit 5 Bit 5
Bit 6 Bit 6^^Soz for the shoddy example, but it basically double's everything, so if one HDD fail's, you have all your data on the other. Plug in a new formatted drive and it copy's itself back over
.RAID 0+1, & RAID 5 - Performance and reliability!
RAID 0+1 involves four HDD's. Two are striped while mirrored, so the data is split and archived on the secondary HDD's!! RAID 5 usually is more cost effective, yet a bit less reliable. It involves three HDD's, and if one fail's, it rebuilds the missing files. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
What we're going to be looking at today is how to set up, RAID 0, specifically.
--
Setting It Up!!
Everyone's BIOS will be different, that's a given...so read up on it, in your Motherboard Manual/Quick Start Guide.
Here's some shot's of my BIOS and how to enable it.
My RAID Menu is in
Integrated Perhipherals
Once it's all enabled, save & exit.
Note, nVRAID access key is F10.
So, if you have an nForce 3 or 4...press F10 like mad at the post screen.
You will come to a menu. It's very self explanitory, just set it all up!!
Here's my shot's.
It should look similar to that when you're finished.
Now, when setting up XP, you will need either your mobo's nVRAID floppy or a CD-ROM that's bootable, that came with the mobo. I know some ASUS mobo's come with bootable CD-Rom's for the RAID Drivers.
Fire up XP setup, make sure the floppy is in when you "press any key to continue."
When you see the screen, like this,
PRESS F6 LIKE MAD untill something else appears down there.
It will install a few things and then the driver selection will pop up. Refer to your MOBO manual to see what ones you need.
Once that's completed, just format the RAID'ed drive like normally, and install xp!!
Make sure to install your nVidia Chipset Drivers ASAP when you get into window's, that should be your #1 priority.
When booting, you may notice this bar.
It load's across the screen. Here's a shot from my computer, when it was just about finished loading.
It takes 2-3 second's, thats it, then it goes to regular XP boot. It only does that when I'm RAID'ed, so I'm guessing it's loading the RAID drivers.
But, now, you're just about done!! It may take a few times for you to get it right, it did for me..just don't give up, it's WELL WORTH IT in the end.
Enjoy your newly kickarse HDD setup!!
.
