RAID? - performance/installation/ease of use

[Fandango]

Hi, i'll be building a new system in the next coupld of weeks for a relative, and was planning on using my ASUS A7V in it, partly because it'll be cheaper for them, and I know it works, and partly because I wanna get a RAID mobo :)

What i'd like is an answer to the following questions if poss, or maybe a referal to a good website where I can find out for myself, cheers.

1). I'm only interested in faster performance, so am I right in saying RAID 0 (striping mode) is the correct type to use?

2). I'm planning on using 2x 30GB IBM deskstars, but I have no other drives, is it possible to run an OS such as Win2k off a RAID array or is it only for data storage, meaning I would need a seperate hard disk for my boot device?

3). If it is possible to run an OS off a RAID device, how would I go about installing the OS - or do I set up the RAID once the OS is installed?

4). What is the performance increase like, does it double data rates?

5). And finally, does a RAID device appear as one drive, or 2 seperate drives, and can you partition it/them?

Thanks in advance,
Fand

[-[Raven]-]

1. RAID 0, think thats the one.

2. Yes, you should be able to run an OS off a RAID array perfectly.

3. You install yer drives, then goto the RAID bios configuration thing, set the drives up for RAID. It sets itself up.

(wrong way round)

5. The RAID array should appear as a single drive, and will act just like a normal 'single' drive. Anything you can do to a normal disk can be done to an array. After its set up it should act just like a normal single drive (except a lot faster obviously).

4. I think you'll find it'll far exceed double the performance.

[Calzor Suzay]

Have a read of this (http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/raid/index.html) article and the section on Raid 0 (http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/singleLevel0.html) and then the interesting section (http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/raid/whyShould.html) on whether you should use Raid or not.

If you can read through the first link from start to finish it's a very well written article :E

[Fandango]

Cheers guys. And you're right, it is a very well written article. Still only about halfway through though :)

Fand