Tech Tip of the Day: RAID by the numbers

Description: This guide will walk through the 3 most common types of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent/Inexpensive Disks) and their purpose.

RAID 0

RAID 0 is not a true RAID as there is no redundancy with RAID 0. RAID 0 is typically referred to as a performance RAID as it takes all of your data and stripes it across two drives. The idea behind this RAID is that with two drives actively accessing all of your data it could theoretically be accessed twice as fast. Statistically this is not accurate, though performance is increased.

Advantages
• Faster load times/speed increase
• Uses the capacity of both disks
  
  
Disadvantages
• No redundancy - one drive fails all data is lost
  
  

RAID 1

RAID 1 is most commonly referred to as a mirrored RAID. RAID 1 takes all of your data and duplicates it exactly between the two drives in a RAID. Should one drive fail within the RAID 1 setup the other drive will take over as the primary drive without any data loss. The failed drive can then be replaced and the RAID array rebuilt in order to re-establish the mirror between the two drives.

Advantages
• Data Redundancy
• One drive fails the other keeps going
  
Disadvantages
• Requires 2 hard drives of equal capacity only

RAID 5

RAID 5 is somewhat of a combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1. It is a data stripe with a level of redundancy. RAID 5 uses three separate hard drives and stripes data across all 3 drives, but there is a level of redundancy so if one drive fails the other two take over. For this reason the overall capacity of the RAID volume is the sum of two of the three drives.

Advantages
• Data Redundancy
• Increased capacity (two out of three drives in the array)
  
Disadvantages
• Requires 3 hard drives of equal capacity

For more assistance contact Technical Support here.

Tech Tip of the Day: How to configure a RAID volume on an Intel motherboard

Description: This guide will walk through how to create a RAID volume on an Intel motherboard. Most Intel motherboards will support RAID 0 or RAID 1. RAID, or Redundant Array of Inexpensive/Independent Disks is a technology that provides storage reliability through redundancy, combining multiple hard disk drives in to one logical unit wherein data is stored in multiple copies across multiple hard drives.

There are many types of RAID but the two most common are RAID 1 and RAID 0. RAID 1 is a duplicate drive, essentially Drives 1 and 2 will be exactly the same. This is done so that if either of the two drives fail, an exact copy of that drive is readily available.

Example:
Drive 1: File A, File B, File C, et cetera.
Drive 2: File A, File B, File C, et cetera.

RAID 0 is in fact not really RAID at all because it is not redundant. RAID 0 splits a file in to pieces and puts some of the pieces on Drive 1 and some on Drive 2, to increase speed. The theory is that if Drive 1 reads the first part of File A, and Drive 2 reads the second part of File A, the information is actually read twice as fast and thus the computer is twice as fast. The major downside is that this actually doubles your susceptibility to hardware failures as if one drives fails, all of the information is lost.

1. Make sure two hard drives are connected to the motherboard and are connected to the power supply.
2. Enter the standard BIOS by pressing the F2 key repeatedly on POST.
3. Once in the BIOS go to the Configuration tab, then select SATA Drives
   
   


4. Within the SATA Drives heading set the Chipset SATA Mode to <RAID>
   
   


5. Save changes and Exit.
6. After the settings have been saved, power down the machine
7. Power on the machine and immediately begin tapping the Ctrl key and the I key repeatedly. This will access the RAID BIOS.
8. The RAID BIOS will show both drives connected to the system. In this menu select Create RAID Volume
   
   


9. Select a Name for the volume and press the Tab key
   
   


10. Select the RAID type (0 or 1) using the up or down arrow keys and press Tab again.
    
    


11. Press the Tab key through the rest of the options until you get to the Create Volume option and press the Enter key.
    
    


12. A data loss warning will appear when creating a new volume: All data will be lost on both drives. Press the Y key to create the RAID volume.
    
    


13.  The two drives will show in a RAID once this is complete. Press ESC then Y to Exit the RAID BIOS then install your operating system on your drives which are now in RAID.
    
    

For more assistance contact Technical Support here.