8KNXP - which RAID controller to use?

Ditto here, except for a few snags: WinXP-Pro wouldn't take the GigaRAID
drivers at install, though as it turned out using one drive proved the best
alternative because of the now well-known performance problems of GigaRAID.
Second, I never could get Easytune4 to load, either the CD version or
another Gigabyte tech support provided. No loss, as I'm running MBM5
instead, which works fine.

Now, after two months, I've added a Zalman HSF and a second gb of RAM, and
the machine could not be more stable.

"Timothy Drouillard" wrote in message
news
"CriticalMass" wrote in message
...

At the other end of the spectrum, I've had my 8KNXP for two months now and
I've never had a single problem with it.
I'm booting off a RAID 0 array on the SI connectors, have a second RAID 0
array on the Intel SATA connectors, and a WD 250gig on the standard IDE
controller.

Running XP Pro
3.2gig cpu
2gig generic DDR400 ram
Antec TruePower 430watt PS
FX5900Ultra

go figure..

You can always run RAID 0 under XP - soft raid, but you will probably lose
all performance benefits + some CPU.

- Tim



"Ron Zahavi" wrote in message
m...
"Bob Davis" wrote in message
. ..
Ditto here, except for a few snags: WinXP-Pro wouldn't take the
GigaRAID
drivers at install, though as it turned out using one drive proved the
best
alternative because of the now well-known performance problems of
GigaRAID.
Second, I never could get Easytune4 to load, either the CD version or
another Gigabyte tech support provided. No loss, as I'm running MBM5
instead, which works fine.

Now, after two months, I've added a Zalman HSF and a second gb of RAM,
and
the machine could not be more stable.

"Timothy Drouillard" wrote in message
news
"CriticalMass" wrote in message
...

At the other end of the spectrum, I've had my 8KNXP for two months now
and
I've never had a single problem with it.
I'm booting off a RAID 0 array on the SI connectors, have a second
RAID 0
array on the Intel SATA connectors, and a WD 250gig on the standard
IDE
controller.

Running XP Pro
3.2gig cpu
2gig generic DDR400 ram
Antec TruePower 430watt PS
FX5900Ultra

go figure..



I have tried using both the intel SATA RAID and the SI RAID in RAID 0
config. One difference I noticed is that the Intel has SMART
capability and I noticed it can flag the status of the disks, while
the SI one does not.

A couple of times I have had problems where the computer hung and then
on reboot the RAID 0 config is lost. After 3-4 reboots, suddenly it
is recognized and everything seems to work ok. I get this on both
RAID controllers. The intel RAID seems to be smarter and sometimes
displays a message saying it discovered a RAID config and if I want to
use it. The SI never displays such a message, it just seemed to find
it somehow and continue.

I am concerned about losing data in RAID 0 config and I don't want to
rebuild my disks constantly. I have 2x200Gig Maxtor drives. Is there
a way to run the disks in SATA with no RAID 0 or 1, just as two disk
drives? There is a possibility that one of the disks is bad (the
intel controller complained about the SMART event status on one). I
reformatted it and moved the drives to the SI controller, but I can't
tell if it still has the problem because the SI controller doesn't
show these events. Disk utilities cannot check the disk when it is
part of the RAID so before I send it back to Maxtor I want to try
running the OS on one drive and make the other drive just a data
drive.

Thanks,

Ron