How to set up RAID 0+1 on P4C800E-DLX MB -using 4 SATA HDD's & 2 ATA133 HHD?

"DanO" wrote in message om...
You're welcome. Good luck with the RAID5 setup. I wish I could afford it

This is an update as of 05/15/04 to my problem: If you want to use 4
SATA drives running RAID on this MB be WARNED: you can't unless you
get an add on PCI Raid card. The on board RAID is either the promise
controller or the Intel controller, but not both. So you can use
either the on board RAID 1 and RAID 2 plugs coming off the MB or you
can use the SATA RAID 1 and SATA RAID 2 plugs coming off the MB, but
you CAN'T use all 4 SATA plugs on this MB. THANKS ASUS for telling
us! NOT! I ended up having to buy a third party PCI RAID controller
card and plugging all four of my SATA drives into it to use them
together in a RAID array. I got the 3ware Escalade 8506-4LP and have
all four SATA drives plugged into this card in RAID 5, I'm not even
using any of the on board RAID controllers. This info isn't anywhere
on the ASUS web site or the manual about this MB. BEWARE of
incomplete info from ASUS. With the 3ware add on card (at an
additional cost of $305.00) it works okay, except for an aggravating
error every time I boot up that says "your system recovered for a
serious error" about some non specific device driver.

My rig is:
OS: Win. XP Pro. Svc. Pck. 1A
MB: Asus P4C800E- Deluxe
Case: Coolermaster Preatorian PAC-T01-E1 with Antec True 430 ATX12V
PSU
CPU: P4 3Ghz. - 800 Mhz, FSB (w/ Coolermaster aftermarket Heatsink /
Fan)
Memory: Kingston 3200/400DDR (512 x 2)in slots 1 and 4
4 (four): Seagate SATA 160G 7200 RPM Hard Disk Drives (HDD's)
3 ware add on PCI card: Escalade 8506-4LP RAID controller card
Optorite 8X DVD Burner
Sapphire 9200 Radeon 8x AGP video card (by ATI)
Mitsumi Model # D359M3D 1.44 floppy (black)
Sceptre 19" TFT LCD flat panel display

DEAR EVERYBODY:

I was the original poster on this thread and want everybody to know
what I finally did to resolve my problem (explained in detail in the
above thread.
This is an update as of 05/21/04 to my problem: If you want to use 4
SATA drives running RAID on this MB be WARNED: you can't unless you
get an add on PCI Raid card. The on board RAID is either the promise
controller or the Intel controller, but not both. So you can use
either the on board RAID 1 and RAID 2 plugs coming off the MB or you
can use the SATA RAID 1 and SATA RAID 2 plugs coming off the MB, but
you CAN'T use all 4 SATA plugs on this MB. THANKS ASUS for telling
us! NOT! I ended up having to buy a third party PCI RAID controller
card and plugging all four of my SATA drives into it to use them
together in a RAID array. I got the 3ware Escalade 8506-4LP and have
all four SATA drives plugged into this card in RAID 5, I'm not even
using any of the on board RAID controllers. This info isn't anywhere
on the ASUS web site or the manual about this MB. BEWARE of
incomplete info from ASUS. With the 3ware add on card (at an
additional cost of $305.00) it works okay, except for an aggravating
error every time I boot up that says "your system recovered for a
serious error" about some non specific device driver.

"DanO" wrote in message om...
You're welcome. Good luck with the RAID5 setup. I wish I could afford it
myself.

DanO

"Data Wing" wrote in message
om...
"DanO" wrote in message
om...
Data,
You can use all of the connectors on the MB at the same time, but
you
can NOT create one giant raid set using all of the connectors at once.

The two Intel IDE connectors can support up to 4 devices total, but none
in
a RAID Array. These IDE ports can be used for Hard Drives or Optical
Drives.
Dear DanO and other interested readers: (from Datawing - original
poster):
This is an update as of 06/05/04 to my problem: If you want to use 4
SATA drives running RAID on this MB be WARNED: you can't unless you
get an add on PCI Raid card. The on board RAID is either the promise
controller or the Intel controller, but not both. So you can use
either the on board RAID 1 and RAID 2 plugs coming off the MB or you
can use the SATA RAID 1 and SATA RAID 2 plugs coming off the MB, but
you CAN'T use all 4 SATA plugs on this MB. THANKS ASUS for telling
us! NOT! I ended up having to buy a third party PCI RAID controller
card and plugging all four of my SATA drives into it to use them
together in a RAID array. I got the 3ware Escalade 8506-4LP and have
all four SATA drives plugged into this card in RAID 5, I'm not even
using any of the on board RAID controllers. This info isn't anywhere
on the ASUS web site or the manual about this MB. BEWARE of
incomplete info from ASUS. With the 3ware add on card (at an
additional cost of $305.00) it worked okay for about 2 weeks, except
for an error every time I booted up that says "your system recovered
from a serious error" about some non specific device driver. Now, as
of last week, it won't even boot up, giving a "STOP" error BSOD. I've
spent over $3600.00 on this rig and it won'r even boot up. Don't know
what to do.

My rig is:
OS: Win. XP Pro. Svc. Pck. 1A
MB: Asus P4C800E- Deluxe
Case: Coolermaster Preatorian PAC-T01-E1 with Antec True 430 ATX12V
PSU
CPU: P4 3Ghz. - 800 Mhz, FSB (w/ Coolermaster aftermarket Heatsink /
Fan)
Memory: Kingston 3200/400DDR (512 x 2)in slots 1 and 4
4 (four): Seagate SATA 160G 7200 RPM Hard Disk Drives (HDD's)
3 ware add on PCI card: Escalade 8506-4LP RAID controller card
Optorite 8X DVD Burner
Sapphire 9200 Radeon 8x AGP video card (by ATI)
Mitsumi Model # D359M3D 1.44 floppy (black)
Sceptre 19" TFT LCD flat panel display


The two Intel SATA connectors can perform RAID 0 or RAID 1 with two SATA
Hard Drives (1 per connector.)

The Promise Controller can perform RAID 0 or RAID 1 with its two SATA
connectors (same as the Intel above.) You can also create a RAID 0 or
RAID
1 array with the single Promise IDE port (two IDE drives on one ribbon
cable, one Master one Slave.)

With the Promise Controller, you might be able to perform RAID 0+1 as
well,
using 4 drives (2 SATA in RAID 0 + 2 IDE in RAID 0.) Basically you'd
have a
mirror set of two RAID 0 arrays.

RAID 0 = Disk Striping (no protection, but extra speed)

RAID 1 = Disk Mirroring (protection, but only 1/2 total drive space
available)

RAID 5 = an array of at least 3 drives, where any one drive can fail and
no
data will be lost. The failed drive can then be replaced and its data
recreated from the "parity" data on the remaining drives. (extra speed,
protection, and efficient use of disk space.)

DanO


"Data Wing" wrote in message
om...
"jim" wrote in message


A good hardware RAID controller like one at www.3ware.com running
RAID 5
is
your best and highest performance solution.
Use the 4 Seagates in RAID 5 and put the two Samsungs off the mobo's
controllers in RAID 1 for less intense disk I/O usage or better sell
the
Samsungs.

JIM: So what you are saying is that with this MB (P4C800-E DLX), I
could buy a high end Raid 5 Controller and be able to use these 4
identical SATA Barracudas (160G - 7200 RPM) on this MB? Is that RAID
5 contoller a PCI slot card? If so, would all SATA 4 HDD's be
connected off that controller card? If not, what hardware would go
where? Would I still use on board Intel or on board Promise Raid ?
I NOW know I can't use BOTH of the on board Intel Raid and the on
board Promise RAID subsystems at the same time on this MB. They are
mutually exclusive. NOTHING in the ASUS manual or ASUS website about
these being mutually exclusive! This MB manual is very poor on
anything other than straight RAID 0 or straight RAID 1 with just a
couple of hard drives. But what gives with all these connectors on
this MB? ASUS needs to tell people they can't use all the SATA
connestors and the PROMISE ata 133 connectors at the same time on this
MB! Am I right? Appareltly they are options. If I set up RAID 5
using all 4 SATA HDD's as you suggest on this MB, which SATA
connectors on this MB would be used, and would the on board Intel Raid
drivers and/or the on board Promise Raid drivers need to be installed?
I am considering your suggested (Raid 5 w/ all 4 SATA HDD's) solution
but need to know exactly how that would be connected and configured on
this MB before I spend any more money. I have already spent over
$3,300.00 on this system so far, and from what I am going to have left
over I will probably have enough to build a 2d system (which I don't
really need). I have been trying to figure this out for about 2
months. Lastly could you please shed some light on what is RAID 5?
Thank you for your help.

DAN-O:
Thanks for your help. I think I'll just buy the 3ware 8506-4 LP
Controller card. I think it will install in any PCI slot and I can
plug the 4 SATA 160G HDD's directly into the card. It will support
RAID 5. According to 3ware site, Raid 5 is mirroring and striping and
I will only lose the equivalent of 1 drive worth of data storage
space. So with 4 - 160 G HDD's I will still have (3 x 160 =) 480 G of
data storage space. It irks me that I paid so much for this MOBO and
my primary function will be from an add on Controller Card (which is
going to cost $342.00!). I probably could have saved some money by
buying a mainboard that didn't have on board RAID, which I will end up
not using. I am disappointed at ASUS for not indicating clearly in
the specs and in their manual that you can't set up a multi SATA HDD
RAID above Raid 0 or Raid 1.(Without adding a PCI controller card.)
Uggh! --- BUT thanks very much for your help.