Hello people,

I am thinking of setting up a SATA RAID 0 on my Gigabyte 8IK1100. I know it's a software RAID (the integrated ichr5 can do RAID 0 with winxp), but I still want to try.

So, when I'll have two SATA disks, I will hook them up on the 1st and 2nd SATA connectors. Then what? As far as I can see now there is no option to build the array from the bios (i don't know if the option will appear, if it detects two sata disks). So there must be some utility/program that builds the array before windows boots. If so what's that? And lastly, when i create the array, it will format the disks as a whole, and then will i be able to partition it? If anyone has previous experience with building an array with a ichr5 mobo, please help!

Any ideas much appreciated!

Quite a read that was Alecstaar!

Yes, I can always use good old Disk Management to make the disks dynamic. There's also Intel's Application Accelerator RAID Edition that i've installed.

And that forces me to install windows, and then create the array? According to Intel's Application Accelerator RAID Edition documentation I will lose every bit of info in the disks that will form the array. So ok, i create the array and i assume that i will then be able to create partitions, format, install windows etc....

Thanks for all the help, hopefully my next post will be done when i've set the array and windows and everything.....

fingers crossed!

here is the big picture.
1) Win2000 and Xp pro can do raid-0 with softare. Xp home can't.
2) Using windows software raid, you can't boot off it
3) If you want to boot off it you must use hardware raid, whether its an addon card or if your builtin controlers will handle it.
4) I highly recommend you don't do it, unless you have a regular tape backup or something backing up all your data al the time.

A follow up.

I got the second SATA disk this morning, I hooked it up on the motherboard, right after POST there was another screen. It said 'Press Ctrl-I' to setup the array and there was it! Pick the disks to form the array, pick mode (there was RAID0 and RAID1) and stripe size. Windows setup found the array as a huge unpartitioned drive and after another windows installation hew I am!

Speed has improved, not tromendously though. I am using two Maxtor disks (info here). I am using HD Tach 2.7 and Sandra 2004

Single SATA drive: burst read about 84MB/sec, writes 48
Two SATA drives RAID0: burst read about 116MB/sec, writes 59

Thanks for all the input guys

My bd I meant to say XP Pro can do raid 1, XP home cannot. Only the windows servers can do raid 1 and 5 wth software.

im also thinking of buying another drive to run raid, i have almost the same setup as you glad to know it went well.
but my question is how did you overclock that p4? i cant seem to find anything on our board and chip.

any help much appreciated.