RAID help

Question

I am interested in setting up a RAID 1 configuration on my Precision 690 and have a couple of questions. I want to utilize 4 hard drives two 500GB and two 160GB is this possible? Or can you have only one pair of RAID drives?

I have also been considering running the 160GB drives in a RAID 0 formation (I use the computer for photo editing w/Photoshop) would I notice a big speed increase and would I still be able to have my second pair of drives (2x 500GB) setup in a RAID 1? Lastly how do I setup RAID?

Dual Core Intel Xeon Processor 5130 2.00GHz, 4MB L2,1333

4 GB DDR2 ECC SDRAM 677MHz (2 DIMMs)

Windows XP Pro.

C1,1-2 SATA,Non Raid,690

Vyprman · Answer

You can have as many pairs as you have controlers on your system, so yes, you can have 2 RAID 1 Volumes.   With RAID 0 you will notice a performance increase on disk access, but be aware that if any of the disks fail, you will lose EVERYTHING on the two disks..   You can RAID the two volumes any way you like so you can set up the 2x 500Gb drives on a RAID 1 volume and the 2 x160Gbs on a RAID 0.   Assuming you are using the built in RADI and not the add on pERC card, the instructions can be found here   http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ws690/en/ug/advfeat.htm#wp1056903

eos_e18ca5 · Answer

Thank you for the help and link, so do I need to purchase an additional controller or does the built in allow for two separate Raid configurations?   Also I am a little confused if I will lose all of my data when setting this up (either in a 0 or 1 configuration)??

Vyprman · Answer

You will not require an add in card as the built in controller will do RAID 0 & 1 with no problems. the add in card adds the RAID 5 functionaility   Yes, you will lose all your data when setting up the RAID volumes so back up your data first.

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RAID help

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