RAID, research to implementation

[Tinker]

RAID Part 1

This is going to be the first of several installments on my installation of a RAID system into my machine. I am doing this because I had a hard time finding information in a quick and timely manor. I spent the better part of 20 hours doing research on RAID and the availed components that will make it work. First I will give you my system layout.

ASUS P4T system board w/i850 chip-set
768 Meg RAMBUS 800-45
PNY Geforce4 MX-420
Maxtor 40 gig HDD ATA 100
Other standard goodies, CDRW, Floppy, USB goodies

As you can see the system is pretty well off except for the fact that if the HDD dies I have to start all over and rebuild the OS and software set-ups. You well see as we go along I went a bit high end for this RAID set up and that is because I tried to plain for future use and in a couple of years the system board and CPU will be due for upgrade.

O.K. here we go�E�E..



RAID Concept#

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is an acronym first used in a 1988 paper by Berkeley researchers Patterson, Gibson and Katz. It described array configuration and applications for multiple inexpensive hard disks, providing fault tolerance (redundancy) and improved access rates.

RAID provides a method of accessing multiple individual disks as if the array were one larger disk, spreading data access out over these multiple disks, thereby reducing the risk of losing all data if one drive fails, and improving access time.










Click here to see the rest of the information to above.

Once you have had a chance to digest that information you can see why RAID 0,1 would be a nice addition to a system. Of course you could use RAID 1 for redundancy and always have a back up drive ready to go in case the main C: drive should fail. The benefit is that you do not have any down time and you can change out the bad drive when you can schedule it in (you know have the money and time to do so). If you should choose to use RAID 1 only 2 drives are needed. Now the tricky thing is that you want all of your drives to be the same size and type. I got four (4) 40 Gig HDDs to use on my system. The main reason I used 40 Gig is that the price difference was only a few dollars from 20 Gig to 40 Gig so why not? To be more exact the drives are 40 Gig ATA133 7200 rpm.

Check out this information and ask questions and give remarks then we will move to Part 2..

Have Fun..