Raid

I currently have two 120GB SATA HDD's in RAID 0, plugged in to my built-in SATA RAID controller on my mobo. I'd like to add in an extra 120GB SATA HDD into my RAID 0 array, so I purchased an additional PCI SATA RAID controller.

My question is, can I maintain the two currently connected to the mobo, and have the third one via PCI - or do all three have to be plugged into the same controller?

Also, is there any program anyone knows of that will add an additional drive to a RAID 0 array, without deleting the array all together, so I won't have to back everything up on an extra drive?

Thanks in advance.

 

can't do it. your array is configured and your drives are setup already. In order to add another drive you have to do a clean install.

 

Okay, so I have to start over - but can I have two SATA HDD's connected to my mobo, and another connected to my PCI SATA RAID controller - and have all 3 part of the same array?

 

No. Any drive you wish to be a part of your RAID array must be connected to ports that communicate with your RAID chipset.

 

So I have to get a PCI SATA RAID card that has 3 or more ports?

 

well, lets back up a bit. Tell me exactly what you're looking to do and why and I'll map out what you need

 

I want to have three 120GB SATA HDD's in RAID 0.

But, my motherboard only have 2 SATA ports on the mobo.

I have a PCI SATA RAID card laying around the house, but it only has 2 ports on it.

My question is, can I have two of the HDD's connected to the motherboard, and the third one connected to the PCI SATA RAID controller - and use them all as part of the same array? Or, do all of the HDD's have to be on the same controller, and I have to purchase a 4 port PCI SATA RAID card?

 

yeah, the drives have to be on the same controller. You'll need a 4 port.

 

Thank you.

And also, do you believe having three SATA HDD's in RAID 0 is faster than a 10,000RPM drive? That's why I'm getting it, I was going to get a 10,000RPM drive, but people said just add another drive or two into my RAID array, and it'd be faster than a 10,000RPM.

 

That's a good question. My first guess would be yes but by how much? I can't answer that with confidence.

 

I have read 3 or 4 articles on this subject and they all come to the same conclusion,there is no real world performance advantage by using raid 0,you are just disadvantaged in the fact that both harddrives can go at once,all the synthetic benchmarks will show greater data bandwidth but nothing will load faster.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101