Raid Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[relborg]

hi there
i am building a system based on a msi ultra motherboard.
it has on board support for raid and i would like to find out how to connect the whole lot? i want to install 4 hard drives. will they be viewed as one or 2 virtual drives in windows. i want to set it ip for raid 0 (striping) please let me know if anyone can help with this question.

[qwk69gto]

Use 4 identical drives (faster the better). Use two of the 4 cables the drives came with.
Set 2 drives to master and 2 to slave. Connect 1 master and 1 slave two each cable (master at end of cable). Connect 1 cable to 1 RAID IDE port and connect the other cable to the remaining RAID IDE port. Do all of this after mounting them in the case.
I highly recommend mounting them in a server case w/active cooling (fans) directly on the drives. Those babies are going to produce a lot of heat.
Consult the motherboard manual on how to set up the drives in the RAID bios.
All four drives will be seen as one drive (i.e. 40gig x 4=160gig).
Enjoy the speed!

AMD Athlon 1.2Ghz
Iwill KA266 motherboard
512m DDR Ram
2-40g IBM in RAID 0 w/active cooling
60g Maxtor/20g Maxtor on ATA100 controller card
GeForce4 64m video
Sound Blaster Live!
Linksys LAN w/broadband
3com modem
Antec SOHO server case
Plextor 16/10/40 CD-RW
Pioneer DVD-116
Viewsonic A90f monitor
Way to much other stuff!

[Morgan_Lander]

Also, realize that the failure of even one drive will completely hose everything, so BACKUP!!!!!!! Often!!

[seabird2k]

useing 4 drives on 2 ide channels isnt that great
that means u will always have 2 drives attemping to write(or read) at the same time on each ide

it would be better just going for 2 bigger drives, both set to master or getting a raid controller with 4 ide channels

[qwk69gto]

[seabird2k]

yeah 4 is better than 2 BUT
2 devices cant write on the same ide channel at once:confused:
thats y that mobo with 4 ide raid + 2 ide normal is w00t
also that is y u get 4 ide channels on dedicated pci raid cards:smokin: