GA-8KNXP & WinXP with 2 disks in RAID1 and 2 disks in RAID0.

Hello All,

I am planning to buy a GA-8KNXP with the following specs:
- P4 2.8MHz cpu (800MHz FSB)
- 1.5 GB DDR400 RAM
- 4 x Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9 120GB Disks (8MB cache), SATA, 7200rpm.
- Nividia GEFORCE FX5600 256MB w/video.
- 500W Power Supply
- 17" LG LCD monitor
- Win XP O/S

I would like to setp up the Disk drives to be:
- Boot/System Drive with 1 partition for WinXP & applications (drive C):
2 x Maxtor (120GB) SATA in RAID1 (mirrored) connected via the 2 on-board
Silicon Image Sil3112 ports (SATA0_SII & SATA1_SII).

- Video editing drive with 2 partitions (drives D & E):
- 2 x Maxtor (120GB) SATA in RAID0 (striping) connected via the 2 on-board
ICHR5 ports (SATA0_SB & SATA1_SB).


Questions
-----------
1) Does any one have any experience with implementing both RAID0 and RAID1
using the on-board chips/ports? Any lessons there?

2) Any comments on whether you think my disks config can be implemented on
the on-board ports? And if so is performance slow using the on-board chips
rather than a separate PCI controller?

3) If you recommend separate RADI0 and RAID1 PCI controller, what brands &
models do you suggest?

4) Any comments on the partitioning choice I made (which is really biased
towards flexibility)?

Thanks kindly
Danny Tay

I'm currently running a GA-8KNXP myself
P4 3.2Ghz
2gig DDR400 Dual-Channel mode
FX 5900 Ultra
Antech True-Power 430
Win XP Pro

for HD's, I have two WD Raptors in a RAID 0 on the SI SATA RAID controller
for the OS.

I also have two Seagate 160gig SATA drives in another RAID 0 on the Intel
ICH5 RAID controller for Data files.

works great for me.

Performance is very quick on both RAID's

"Diane TAY" wrote in message
u...
Hello All,

I am planning to buy a GA-8KNXP with the following specs:
- P4 2.8MHz cpu (800MHz FSB)
- 1.5 GB DDR400 RAM
- 4 x Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9 120GB Disks (8MB cache), SATA, 7200rpm.
- Nividia GEFORCE FX5600 256MB w/video.
- 500W Power Supply
- 17" LG LCD monitor
- Win XP O/S

I would like to setp up the Disk drives to be:
- Boot/System Drive with 1 partition for WinXP & applications (drive C):
2 x Maxtor (120GB) SATA in RAID1 (mirrored) connected via the 2
on-board
Silicon Image Sil3112 ports (SATA0_SII & SATA1_SII).

- Video editing drive with 2 partitions (drives D & E):
- 2 x Maxtor (120GB) SATA in RAID0 (striping) connected via the 2 on-board
ICHR5 ports (SATA0_SB & SATA1_SB).


Questions
-----------
1) Does any one have any experience with implementing both RAID0 and RAID1
using the on-board chips/ports? Any lessons there?

2) Any comments on whether you think my disks config can be implemented on
the on-board ports? And if so is performance slow using the on-board chips
rather than a separate PCI controller?

3) If you recommend separate RADI0 and RAID1 PCI controller, what brands &
models do you suggest?

4) Any comments on the partitioning choice I made (which is really biased
towards flexibility)?

Thanks kindly
Danny Tay

"Diane TAY" wrote in message
u...
Hello All,

I am planning to buy a GA-8KNXP with the following specs:
- P4 2.8MHz cpu (800MHz FSB)
- 1.5 GB DDR400 RAM
- 4 x Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9 120GB Disks (8MB cache), SATA, 7200rpm.
- Nividia GEFORCE FX5600 256MB w/video.
- 500W Power Supply
- 17" LG LCD monitor
- Win XP O/S

I would like to setp up the Disk drives to be:
- Boot/System Drive with 1 partition for WinXP & applications (drive C):
2 x Maxtor (120GB) SATA in RAID1 (mirrored) connected via the 2
on-board
Silicon Image Sil3112 ports (SATA0_SII & SATA1_SII).

- Video editing drive with 2 partitions (drives D & E):
- 2 x Maxtor (120GB) SATA in RAID0 (striping) connected via the 2 on-board
ICHR5 ports (SATA0_SB & SATA1_SB).


Questions
-----------
1) Does any one have any experience with implementing both RAID0 and RAID1
using the on-board chips/ports? Any lessons there?

-lots of lessions to be learned. Don't get in a hurry and have a boot disk
with fdisk and format and a boot sequence. Should be comfortable in DOS.


2) Any comments on whether you think my disks config can be implemented on
the on-board ports? And if so is performance slow using the on-board chips
rather than a separate PCI controller?

-Experience shows the speed is just about the same between the on-board and
PCI controller board. With the on-board approach the system BIOS dictates
the driver used. With the PCI controler BIOS/DRIVER up dates are easier. Win
XP hates all drivers but there own.

3) If you recommend separate RADI0 and RAID1 PCI controller, what brands &
models do you suggest?

-I use High Point Tech for both Serial RAID and Parrellel RAID.


4) Any comments on the partitioning choice I made (which is really biased
towards flexibility)?

- why did you not go for RIAD 0+1? Two partitions.

Thanks kindly
Danny Tay

Hello JPSGA,

To answer your question specifically about why I am not thinking of adopting
RAID 0+1 for all 4 disks. Reason is I want to separate the video-editing
application drives D&E apart from O/S application drive C - for reasons of
performance since Video-editing is very disk-intensive.

If I use RAID0+1 for all disks then the data for videos is also spread right
across every drive rather than isolated in Drive D&E. I did not want to
spend extra money buying a PCI RAID1 card to mirror the video drives, so I
decided to just use on-board RAID0 to get the speed doubled instead. In the
end, video data will be put back into MiniDV tape format after editing for
storage becos this is the most economical format. The disks is really only
for editing so mirrored protection is not required. At least for now that's
the theory.

Danny
"jpsga" wrote in message
et...

"Diane TAY" wrote in message
u...
Hello All,

I am planning to buy a GA-8KNXP with the following specs:
- P4 2.8MHz cpu (800MHz FSB)
- 1.5 GB DDR400 RAM
- 4 x Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9 120GB Disks (8MB cache), SATA, 7200rpm.
- Nividia GEFORCE FX5600 256MB w/video.
- 500W Power Supply
- 17" LG LCD monitor
- Win XP O/S

I would like to setp up the Disk drives to be:
- Boot/System Drive with 1 partition for WinXP & applications (drive C):
2 x Maxtor (120GB) SATA in RAID1 (mirrored) connected via the 2
on-board
Silicon Image Sil3112 ports (SATA0_SII & SATA1_SII).

- Video editing drive with 2 partitions (drives D & E):
- 2 x Maxtor (120GB) SATA in RAID0 (striping) connected via the 2
on-board
ICHR5 ports (SATA0_SB & SATA1_SB).


Questions
-----------
1) Does any one have any experience with implementing both RAID0 and
RAID1
using the on-board chips/ports? Any lessons there?

-lots of lessions to be learned. Don't get in a hurry and have a boot
disk
with fdisk and format and a boot sequence. Should be comfortable in DOS.


2) Any comments on whether you think my disks config can be implemented
on
the on-board ports? And if so is performance slow using the on-board
chips
rather than a separate PCI controller?

-Experience shows the speed is just about the same between the on-board
and
PCI controller board. With the on-board approach the system BIOS dictates
the driver used. With the PCI controler BIOS/DRIVER up dates are easier.
Win
XP hates all drivers but there own.

3) If you recommend separate RADI0 and RAID1 PCI controller, what brands
&
models do you suggest?

-I use High Point Tech for both Serial RAID and Parrellel RAID.


4) Any comments on the partitioning choice I made (which is really
biased
towards flexibility)?

- why did you not go for RIAD 0+1? Two partitions.

Thanks kindly
Danny Tay

I am running a Pentium 4 3.2 with 1GM memory and 2 Segate 120GB Baracuda drive
connected to SATA0&1 and created a RAID0 set on these that show as the 240GB I
would expect.

I have tried to install Windows XP Pro on this but cant get it to work. When I
reboot it askes me for my floppy with the Intel driver which I give it. It then
copied the drivers and stuff it needed and then asked me where I wanted to
install windows and showed me a 240GB partition. Everything looks to be working
so far.

So I create a 20GB partition on this drive and tell it to format as NTFS and
then it goes away and does it's work. Copies the driver off the floppy and all
the rest of the files off the CDRom. Still working perfectly.

Now it comes to the reboot to actually start windows and when it comes up to the
boot up it says disk error, ctrl-at-del to restart.

Nothing will get it to work from here. Only way out is to delete the RAID set
and try try again.

I need urgent help.

If you're wanting a RAID config on the onboard ICH5-R Intel Southbridge,
you've almost got it, but you have to fiddle around with the motherboard's
BIOS settings as well in order to tell the system to boot from the RAID
drives. Include "SCSI" in the boot order, then make sure that the Intel
Southbridge is included in the SCSI boot order, RAID enabled. This should
also enable the Intel ICH5-R separate BIOS post after the mobo BIOS post,
which you can enter to configure arrays when told to press Ctrl+I during the
Intel ICH5-R post screen. The motherboard's BIOS settings options on this
board are, indeed, confusing with any help written in "broken" English. I
hope this helps.

Russell
http://tastycomputers.com



"John Veldthuis" wrote in message
...
I am running a Pentium 4 3.2 with 1GM memory and 2 Segate 120GB Baracuda
drive
connected to SATA0&1 and created a RAID0 set on these that show as the
240GB I
would expect.

I have tried to install Windows XP Pro on this but cant get it to work.
When I
reboot it askes me for my floppy with the Intel driver which I give it. It
then
copied the drivers and stuff it needed and then asked me where I wanted to
install windows and showed me a 240GB partition. Everything looks to be
working
so far.

So I create a 20GB partition on this drive and tell it to format as NTFS
and
then it goes away and does it's work. Copies the driver off the floppy and
all
the rest of the files off the CDRom. Still working perfectly.

Now it comes to the reboot to actually start windows and when it comes up
to the
boot up it says disk error, ctrl-at-del to restart.

Nothing will get it to work from here. Only way out is to delete the RAID
set
and try try again.

I need urgent help.

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:27:33 GMT, "Russell"
rsullivan@tastycomputersdotcomreplacedot with. wrote:

Yep I have all that. SCSI set as 1st boot device then CDRom then HD0
The ICH5-R BIOS post does come up and shows the 2 drives mapped to one RAID0
set. But it still comes up and says disk read error, ctrl-alt-del to reboot just
when it should be firing up.

I would suspect a faulty drive but then why did it seem to copy the files from
Windows okay to start with?

If you're wanting a RAID config on the onboard ICH5-R Intel Southbridge,
you've almost got it, but you have to fiddle around with the motherboard's
BIOS settings as well in order to tell the system to boot from the RAID
drives. Include "SCSI" in the boot order, then make sure that the Intel
Southbridge is included in the SCSI boot order, RAID enabled. This should
also enable the Intel ICH5-R separate BIOS post after the mobo BIOS post,
which you can enter to configure arrays when told to press Ctrl+I during the
Intel ICH5-R post screen. The motherboard's BIOS settings options on this
board are, indeed, confusing with any help written in "broken" English. I
hope this helps.

Russell
http://tastycomputers.com



"John Veldthuis" wrote in message
.. .
I am running a Pentium 4 3.2 with 1GM memory and 2 Segate 120GB Baracuda
drive
connected to SATA0&1 and created a RAID0 set on these that show as the
240GB I
would expect.

I have tried to install Windows XP Pro on this but cant get it to work.
When I
reboot it askes me for my floppy with the Intel driver which I give it. It
then
copied the drivers and stuff it needed and then asked me where I wanted to
install windows and showed me a 240GB partition. Everything looks to be
working
so far.

So I create a 20GB partition on this drive and tell it to format as NTFS
and
then it goes away and does it's work. Copies the driver off the floppy and
all
the rest of the files off the CDRom. Still working perfectly.

Now it comes to the reboot to actually start windows and when it comes up
to the
boot up it says disk error, ctrl-at-del to restart.

Nothing will get it to work from here. Only way out is to delete the RAID
set
and try try again.

I need urgent help.

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 08:59:56 +1200, John Veldthuis
wrote:

Even stranger. I just tried putting Windows on one of the drives by itself by
using the remapping of the SATA to IDE and again everything appeared fine.
Windows started to boot up with the normals windows screen for a few seconds
then stopped with a 7B error. I used the recovery console and had a look on the
drive and all the files are on the drive okay so I dont think it is a drive
error. I am getting frustrated now.


On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:27:33 GMT, "Russell"
rsullivan@tastycomputersdotcomreplacedot with. wrote:

Yep I have all that. SCSI set as 1st boot device then CDRom then HD0
The ICH5-R BIOS post does come up and shows the 2 drives mapped to one RAID0
set. But it still comes up and says disk read error, ctrl-alt-del to reboot just
when it should be firing up.

I would suspect a faulty drive but then why did it seem to copy the files from
Windows okay to start with?

If you're wanting a RAID config on the onboard ICH5-R Intel Southbridge,
you've almost got it, but you have to fiddle around with the motherboard's
BIOS settings as well in order to tell the system to boot from the RAID
drives. Include "SCSI" in the boot order, then make sure that the Intel
Southbridge is included in the SCSI boot order, RAID enabled. This should
also enable the Intel ICH5-R separate BIOS post after the mobo BIOS post,
which you can enter to configure arrays when told to press Ctrl+I during the
Intel ICH5-R post screen. The motherboard's BIOS settings options on this
board are, indeed, confusing with any help written in "broken" English. I
hope this helps.

Russell
http://tastycomputers.com



"John Veldthuis" wrote in message
. ..
I am running a Pentium 4 3.2 with 1GM memory and 2 Segate 120GB Baracuda
drive
connected to SATA0&1 and created a RAID0 set on these that show as the
240GB I
would expect.

I have tried to install Windows XP Pro on this but cant get it to work.
When I
reboot it askes me for my floppy with the Intel driver which I give it. It
then
copied the drivers and stuff it needed and then asked me where I wanted to
install windows and showed me a 240GB partition. Everything looks to be
working
so far.

So I create a 20GB partition on this drive and tell it to format as NTFS
and
then it goes away and does it's work. Copies the driver off the floppy and
all
the rest of the files off the CDRom. Still working perfectly.

Now it comes to the reboot to actually start windows and when it comes up
to the
boot up it says disk error, ctrl-at-del to restart.

Nothing will get it to work from here. Only way out is to delete the RAID
set
and try try again.

I need urgent help.

I do video work as well.......the best scenario is to run a RAID0 on SATA
and another RAID0 on SCSI and then process back and forth to each other when
rendering. I use a pair of 80gig Seagate Baracuda SATA drives (Seagate uses
a true, hence faster, SATA interface on their drives) and a pair of Seagate
36 gig SCSI drives of the SCSI raid.This works well. Later I implemented the
ITE raid and added a pair of WD 160 gig drives for video storage. All hell
broke loose. I ended up having to reflash the BIOs and even then it is a
crap-shoot as to whether the Adaptec screen comes up in the BIOS. Finally,
and I have no idea how, but I got all three to work together. I applaud
Gigabyte for including these raids on their motherboard, especially the U320
SCSI raid. However, SiSoft Sandra gives performance values of about 66%
where they should be were I running a PCI-x 29320 Adaptec RAID board. Still,
transfer times going from SATA RAID to SCSI RAID are about half of the time
taken to go from SATA RAID to IDE RAID.

If I find an Athlon 64 mobo with PCI-X slots, I am going for it.

Logan

"Diane TAY" wrote in message
u...
Hello JPSGA,

To answer your question specifically about why I am not thinking of
adopting
RAID 0+1 for all 4 disks. Reason is I want to separate the video-editing
application drives D&E apart from O/S application drive C - for reasons
of
performance since Video-editing is very disk-intensive.

If I use RAID0+1 for all disks then the data for videos is also spread
right
across every drive rather than isolated in Drive D&E. I did not want to
spend extra money buying a PCI RAID1 card to mirror the video drives, so I
decided to just use on-board RAID0 to get the speed doubled instead. In
the
end, video data will be put back into MiniDV tape format after editing for
storage becos this is the most economical format. The disks is really only
for editing so mirrored protection is not required. At least for now
that's
the theory.

Danny
"jpsga" wrote in message
et...

"Diane TAY" wrote in message
u...
Hello All,

I am planning to buy a GA-8KNXP with the following specs:
- P4 2.8MHz cpu (800MHz FSB)
- 1.5 GB DDR400 RAM
- 4 x Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9 120GB Disks (8MB cache), SATA, 7200rpm.
- Nividia GEFORCE FX5600 256MB w/video.
- 500W Power Supply
- 17" LG LCD monitor
- Win XP O/S

I would like to setp up the Disk drives to be:
- Boot/System Drive with 1 partition for WinXP & applications (drive
C):
2 x Maxtor (120GB) SATA in RAID1 (mirrored) connected via the 2
on-board
Silicon Image Sil3112 ports (SATA0_SII & SATA1_SII).

- Video editing drive with 2 partitions (drives D & E):
- 2 x Maxtor (120GB) SATA in RAID0 (striping) connected via the 2
on-board
ICHR5 ports (SATA0_SB & SATA1_SB).


Questions
-----------
1) Does any one have any experience with implementing both RAID0 and
RAID1
using the on-board chips/ports? Any lessons there?

-lots of lessions to be learned. Don't get in a hurry and have a boot
disk
with fdisk and format and a boot sequence. Should be comfortable in DOS.


2) Any comments on whether you think my disks config can be
implemented
on
the on-board ports? And if so is performance slow using the on-board
chips
rather than a separate PCI controller?

-Experience shows the speed is just about the same between the on-board
and
PCI controller board. With the on-board approach the system BIOS
dictates
the driver used. With the PCI controler BIOS/DRIVER up dates are easier.
Win
XP hates all drivers but there own.

3) If you recommend separate RADI0 and RAID1 PCI controller, what
brands
&
models do you suggest?

-I use High Point Tech for both Serial RAID and Parrellel RAID.


4) Any comments on the partitioning choice I made (which is really
biased
towards flexibility)?

- why did you not go for RIAD 0+1? Two partitions.

Thanks kindly
Danny Tay

John, have you checked the Intel installation instructions? ie. Intel
chipset software installation utility, confirm version of Intel RAID
option ROM installed and "after OS installed you still need to install
the Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition by running the typical
Setup.exe process".

John Veldthuis wrote:

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 08:59:56 +1200, John Veldthuis
wrote:

Even stranger. I just tried putting Windows on one of the drives by itself by
using the remapping of the SATA to IDE and again everything appeared fine.
Windows started to boot up with the normals windows screen for a few seconds
then stopped with a 7B error. I used the recovery console and had a look on the
drive and all the files are on the drive okay so I dont think it is a drive
error. I am getting frustrated now.



On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:27:33 GMT, "Russell"
rsullivan@tastycomputersdotcomreplacedot with. wrote:

Yep I have all that. SCSI set as 1st boot device then CDRom then HD0
The ICH5-R BIOS post does come up and shows the 2 drives mapped to one RAID0
set. But it still comes up and says disk read error, ctrl-alt-del to reboot just
when it should be firing up.

I would suspect a faulty drive but then why did it seem to copy the files from
Windows okay to start with?


If you're wanting a RAID config on the onboard ICH5-R Intel Southbridge,
you've almost got it, but you have to fiddle around with the motherboard's
BIOS settings as well in order to tell the system to boot from the RAID
drives. Include "SCSI" in the boot order, then make sure that the Intel
Southbridge is included in the SCSI boot order, RAID enabled. This should
also enable the Intel ICH5-R separate BIOS post after the mobo BIOS post,
which you can enter to configure arrays when told to press Ctrl+I during the
Intel ICH5-R post screen. The motherboard's BIOS settings options on this
board are, indeed, confusing with any help written in "broken" English. I
hope this helps.

Russell
http://tastycomputers.com



"John Veldthuis" wrote in message
...

I am running a Pentium 4 3.2 with 1GM memory and 2 Segate 120GB Baracuda

drive

connected to SATA0&1 and created a RAID0 set on these that show as the

240GB I

would expect.

I have tried to install Windows XP Pro on this but cant get it to work.

When I

reboot it askes me for my floppy with the Intel driver which I give it. It

then

copied the drivers and stuff it needed and then asked me where I wanted to
install windows and showed me a 240GB partition. Everything looks to be

working

so far.

So I create a 20GB partition on this drive and tell it to format as NTFS

and

then it goes away and does it's work. Copies the driver off the floppy and

all

the rest of the files off the CDRom. Still working perfectly.

Now it comes to the reboot to actually start windows and when it comes up

to the

boot up it says disk error, ctrl-at-del to restart.

Nothing will get it to work from here. Only way out is to delete the RAID

set

and try try again.

I need urgent help.