# Advice on RAID etc

## Jacaranda

Hi all!

This is my first post here.  I was pointed this way by the kind people at #gentoo.

I've been reading through the forums, and this thread:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=4634

has raised some questions for me.

I'm thinking of setting up a RAID when I next upgrade, and from my reading I have come to a few different conclusions, and was hoping for some advice.

The setup I would like to have is RAID0, plus another HDD.

The RAID would be setup thusly. (this pretty much stolen from the other thread  :Wink:  )

first 500mb of each drive setup for boot on one, and swap on the other.

next partition(one each) being the partitions to be the RAID0.

remaning area left for windows, either as two seperate partitions, or as RAID0.

Now with the usual MOBO setup of two ide, this gives only 4 devices, I want 5 (2 HDD for RAID, 1 (my old HDD) for extra storage, and an CDROM, and CDRW.

So, my options are:

1. Get a MOBO with onboard raid controller.

The one I'm looking at has the HightPoint HPT372.

My concern here is windows, I know that windows doesn't see linux partitions, so I'm thinking there shouldn't be a problem, however I don't know if the device being on a RAID controller makes the issue more complex.  I don't see why it should, and I haven't been able to find any info about it.  But I get nervous when thinking about forking out money for something I'm not sure will work...  :Smile: 

2. Get a MOBO without the onboard raid controller and:

   a. Get a pci raid controller, and set it up as above.  However this is a little expensive.

   b. Get a pci ide card, use LSR to raid the linux partitions, and use the windows partitions as two seperate drives.

3.  Forget about onboard raid, or controller cards, and just use two HDD.  This option I don't really like, as I've got a 20gig drive here that would go un-used. 

Other questions.

These should have been answered by the above thread, but I'm a newbie to raid, and need a little clarification.

With option 2b, or 3 I'm using LSM to create the raid.

Am I still using LSM with option 1, or 2a? Or is it completely controlled by the hardware.  In other words, does linux use these controllers like an extra ide?  Or is it my choice?  I think I'm starting to confuse myself now...

This post is starting to get a little long, so I'll leave it there.

Thanks.

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## rommel

i was building a system for someone...nad the system was based on a giga-byte mainboard...it had onboard promise ide ata133 raid...but this could be (via the bios) toggled to operate as a raid controller or just two additional ide controllers....while i was waiting for winXP and the case i set it up on  atech stand and loaded gentoo with LSR in a raid0 config using the onboard promise controller ....was very slick....this board also had onboard lan and onboard sound blaster sound.....usb 2.0 ......if i were you i would go with something like this....easy 

GA-7VRXP

edit: just a note about LSR and windows...you obviously cant use that raid0 for anything other then linux....but you really shouldnt use anything other then linux...lol

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## Jacaranda

Thanks, sounds perfect, I'll check it out.

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