Setting up RAID with SATA - need advice.

alancfa2001 · Post by **alancfa2001** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 10:12 am

I am building a computer for the first time and am not entirely clear on the instructions in the motherboard user guide vs the HDD info sheet.

I am using an ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi board with three Samsung T-Series drives. To begin with, the Samsung instructions seem to say that I do not need to use a jumper, that the default setting of cable select will do just fine. The ASUS instructions tell me to select one drive as the master and the other drives as slaves. Perhaps they mean via a jumper or via BIOS with cable select chosen, I am not really sure exactly what they mean and I do not know if setting up a RAID array affects the choice at all.

Next, the instructions about setting up a RAID array are not fully clear to me. ASUS mentions using a JMicron connector to the RAID controller, but I am not sure of the sequence of events. Do I hook up all three drives to the SATA ports, hook up the JMicron cable to the RAID controller and then boot up? Or do I hook up the SATA ports and ignore the RAID controller for the time being?

Getting back to the master/slave question, is it the case that if I were using three drives separately I would need to specify master/slave but since the RAID array creates a single, logical drive that the RAID controller would handle that and therefore I should not use any jumpers?

Should I just set up one drive to load the OS and get everything running and then plug in the other drives and the RAID controller once I am sure that it works?

p.s. if there are other questions that I did not think to ask, feel free to answer them anyway!

PPGMD · Post by **PPGMD** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 10:18 am

You have to setup the raid before you install the OS otherwise it won't work.

Anyways the way I setup raid arrays, put both drives in, then go in the BIOS and turn the raid controller on (it's off my default because it slows down boot times). Then during boot up the raid controller will detect the drives and say something like "Press Cntrl-F10 to enter the control panel" press the key combination it specifies, and then you setup the array there.

On another computer create a floppy disc with the raid drivers (often labeled as IDE drivers for some reason on the menu). Then stick the Windows CD in the drive boot up the computer. When Windows comes up and says "Press F6 to install SCSI drivers" press F6 and insert the floppy disc.

Select the right drivers for your OS, and then install Windows on the drive.

That's the general way to setup raid arrays, that works with almost every raid controller that I have encountered.

alancfa2001 · Post by **alancfa2001** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 3:53 pm

PPGMD wrote:You have to setup the raid before you install the OS otherwise it won't work.

Anyways the way I setup raid arrays, put both drives in, then go in the BIOS and turn the raid controller on (it's off my default because it slows down boot times). Then during boot up the raid controller will detect the drives and say something like "Press Cntrl-F10 to enter the control panel" press the key combination it specifies, and then you setup the array there.

On another computer create a floppy disc with the raid drivers (often labeled as IDE drivers for some reason on the menu). Then stick the Windows CD in the drive boot up the computer. When Windows comes up and says "Press F6 to install SCSI drivers" press F6 and insert the floppy disc.

Select the right drivers for your OS, and then install Windows on the drive.

That's the general way to setup raid arrays, that works with almost every raid controller that I have encountered.

Great, thanks for the info. Still, I have the question about the jumpers. Do you just leave all of the jumpers off so that all of the drives in the RAID array are cable select?

Also, on my ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi board, there are 6 SATA sockets, 4 red and 2 black. From my understanding of the users manual, if I were going with a traditional 1st drive, 2nd drive in a master/slave configuration I would need to consider which sockets to use. But with a RAID array, I can simply choose 1,2, & 3. Is that a correct understanding? Is there any significance to the color?

Also, in the manual, there is what they describe as a "SATA_RAID connector". To me, it just looks like any of the other sockets. I think they are intending it for use with an external RAID array, but they are not explicit about this and so I am not sure whether I need to plug one of the drives into this socket. I assume that I do not, but cannot be absolutely certain. The pin diagrams read the same for RAID_SATA and for SATA1 thru SATA6.

Thanks again.

PPGMD · Post by **PPGMD** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 4:05 pm

I never mess with the jumpers, at least not with SATA drives.

You do have to check the manual to see which are raid ports, many boards have two SATA controllers, one that is connected to the raid controller, and another that is just a normal SATA controller.

alancfa2001 · Post by **alancfa2001** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 5:52 pm

PPGMD wrote:I never mess with the jumpers, at least not with SATA drives.

You do have to check the manual to see which are raid ports, many boards have two SATA controllers, one that is connected to the raid controller, and another that is just a normal SATA controller.

Thanks. I found the answer here:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/393

Apparently the ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi uses the ICH8R southbridge and the "R" in that means RAID. There is also a JMicron chip on the MB for a second RAID array (presumably an external array). The color groupings for the SATA sockets are to clarify which drives go with the RAID controller built into the southbridge vs the RAID controller built into the JMicron chip.

So you have to keep the drives plugged into the same color, you cannot mix-and-match. They also decided in their example to use the controller built into the chipset, though that seems to be a personal preference more than anything.

Thanks again for the help.

dnoiz · Post by **dnoiz** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:55 am

I used the Intel RAID controller (Matrix) so I have a RAID 0 and a RAID 1 part on my 2 HD321KJ drives. I have the same mobo.

Steps I took :

- select RAID instead of IDE in the BIOS, restart
- Ctrl-I to enter Intel RAID setup and define as you require and restart

- slipstream http://driverpacks.net/ (I used Base, Chipset, MassStrorage, Grafics A and Sound B packs) and RyanVM's post-SP2 updates in a Windows XP SP2 CD and use this newly created CD to boot from and install onto the RAID-setup - I needed this as I have no floppy drive anymore

Hope this helps. I had no problems. I did disable the JMicron controller as I have no need for it.

R.

alancfa2001 · Post by **alancfa2001** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 6:32 pm

dnoiz wrote:I used the Intel RAID controller (Matrix) so I have a RAID 0 and a RAID 1 part on my 2 HD321KJ drives. I have the same mobo.

Steps I took :

- select RAID instead of IDE in the BIOS, restart
- Ctrl-I to enter Intel RAID setup and define as you require and restart

- slipstream http://driverpacks.net/ (I used Base, Chipset, MassStrorage, Grafics A and Sound B packs) and RyanVM's post-SP2 updates in a Windows XP SP2 CD and use this newly created CD to boot from and install onto the RAID-setup - I needed this as I have no floppy drive anymore

Hope this helps. I had no problems. I did disable the JMicron controller as I have no need for it.

R.

Thanks. I have pre-ordered MS Vista and I may simply wait another couple of weeks for it to arrive so that I can do a clean install rather than installing Win98 then the Upgrade XP disk or trying to mirror from my existing computer.

I'm going to be setting up a RAID 5 with three identical Samsung drives. I'll post my experiences along with some pictures when I finish. An interesting addition will be a custom plexiglass exhaust duct since this computer will be inside a wooden cabinet.

The last few days, I have spent a lot of time building the system since it was my first time and I was reading the instructions three times each. I just powered it up today and went into the bios and saw that the memory and hard drives were recognized and breathed a sigh of relief that I did not botch anything.

The Nexus Real Silent fans are amazing! I have two 120mm and two 92mm fans and will add one more 120mm just for the video card. They make a little sound when they first spin up, but I cannot hear them unless I get to within 6" of them and have the case cover off. It is true that I am deaf in one ear, but the other ear was still quite impressed!

Thanks for the advice and thanks to the contributors to all of the forums here - I have learned a tremendous amount in the last few months.
Alan