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[Bluehurricane]

Hi folks,
i use the Promise FastTrack 378 onboard controller on my MSI 875P Neo FIS2R board. In the user guide is written that the Promise controller supports RAID 0, 1 and 0+1. OS is WIN XP Pro. I have an RAID 0 (both SATA ports) but want more data security now, so i have bought two new HDD (IDE), every with the same size of the already used HDD for the RAID 0. Than i have created a 2nd RAID 0 on IDE 3 (also controlled from the Promise controller) so both RAID 0 have exact the same size. Now i want mirroring the 1st RAID 0 to the 2nd RAID 0, but this seems not possible. If i try to create a new array (the 3rd after my 1st Raid 0 and the 2nd Raid 0) to include both Raid 0 i get the message "No disc available". OK, but i HAVE 4 HDD wit the same size and can't create a RAID 0+1. What can i do? Should i create 2 RAID 1 and can i those striping??? If it works i will do that but i have to transfer many data from the now exist RAID 0 so i would like to know if it works for sure before i make all those backups.

Many thanks in advance!
Regards Thomas

[Blazer]

have a look http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=38845.0

[Blazer]

i havnt setup raid 0+1 and the manual for your mobo doesnt have the info for the raid 0+1 either, if purchased new it came with another manual that described how to do it, GOOGLE  may help, or if you email VANGO44 he may {MAY} come here and help!

[Blazer]

another find http://www.smartcomputing.com/Editorial/article.asp?article=articles/2004/w1510/13w02/13w02.asp&guid

[Bluehurricane]

Hi Blazer,
at first, many thanks for your advise!
The 1st link (http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=38845.0) i had found before your post but it helps not really, because in this topic VANGO44 wrote nothing about create a Raid 0+1. But your 2nd link (http://www.smartcomputing.com/Editorial/article.asp?article=articles/2004/w1510/13w02/13w02.asp&guid) looks good to me. I can't choose "Raid 10" or "Raid 0+1" or "mirroring and striping" in the controller menu like written there, but i will try the following:
I will choose "Raid 1" and after that i will put-in all 4 HDD in this array. I could think by myself, that this works. At the moment i make the backup. That needs some time, but after this i will post here, of course, if it works.

Once again many thanks
Regards
Thomas

[Blazer]

more info here about the different levels of raid  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID, do report back if possible as i intend to attempt a raid 5 or 10 in the very short future, which is very close to raid 0+1.

[Bluehurricane]

Thanks again.
I know about the different Raid. But i think it's very dependently which Raid the controller supports. Of course, a hardware controller is much more variable in those things but as i bought the board i never thought to need a Raid. And now i'm happy that it is written in the user's guide that the Controller supports Raid 0+1. And i hope it works. BTW, i bougth the board as a new one back in 2004, i think, and i have the original user's guide from the board as well as from the Onboard Promise Raid Controller, but there is nothing written how to create a Raid 0+1 
The only thing that i can find in the guides are the HDD population rules for the Raid 0+1. But that i knew without this guide  :azn:

Cheers
Thomas

[vango44]

Hello,

I've never actually setup a 0+1 array on the 875P but all the other references I've seen start with 4 clean drives not belonging to an array and then selecting the option to build a "Raid0+1" or similar.

If you can backup everything I would suggest deleting all the raid arrays in the Promise Bios and save settings.
Reboot into the Promise Bios and see if it sees all 4 drives as single and not belonging to any Raid.
Now see if it opens up the Raid 0+1 option and select all four drives.

Hope that helps you a little.

[Maesus]

Yup, backup all data, then start from scratch. That's the best way.

[Bluehurricane]

Hi folks,
i found it out by myself at least.
The thing was that you can't select "Raid 0+1" or so, only "security" (means mirroring) or "performance" (means striping). I had made a data backup from my stripe and tried to create the Raid 0+1.
At first i had created 2 arrays as stripe with 2 HDD in every array and tried to mirror the 1st with the 2nd. For that I tried to create a 3rd array and would put-in the two arrays that i had created before. No way... i got the error message "No disk available"
Then i tried the other way and had created 2 arrays as mirror and would stripe them. But same result like before...
And then, after hours and hours of thinking what i make wrong, a asked to me what happens, if i select "security", create only ONE array and put ALL 4 disk into it.

And that's it!!!!

Directly after all 4 HDD were assigned to this one array the state of the Raid was changing from "security" to "security/performance" and voila i had my Raid 0+1.
The system was complete new installed then and for additional security i've made an image from the boot partition.

Now all works fine and i can agree with Marty Sems (http://www.smartcomputing.com/Editorial/article.asp?article=articles/2004/w1510/13w02/13w02.asp&guid) that the Raid 0+1 has nearly the same performance like the Raid 0.

So I'm happy now that all works fine and that i have much more data security.

Many thanks  for all your help!

Regards
Thomas

[Blazer]

so only after you selected security, you was then able to select security and performance.

glad you got it going!

[vango44]

Thanks for the info!
I've added a reference to Raid0+1 on the Promise controller in the Raid setup guide sticky and a link to this thread.

I also wonder if you started with 4 clean drives and none were assigned to a raid; would it not give you the option security/performance right from the start?

 

vango44

[Bluehurricane]

@ Blazer

no, i had never the choice to select "security and performance". After i had selected "security" and put all the 4 HDD in ONE array the controller BIOS switched to "security/performance" automatically.


@ vango 44

no, no chance.
At 1st i had tried to let my data on the HDD (2 of them as Raid 0) and create with 2 other HDD (same size and vendor) another Raid 0 and mirror this. But i had absolutely no chance to do this.
So i've made a data backup, deleted the Raid 0 and tried other things with 4 clean drives with the same size. But the controller BIOS never gave me a chance to select "security/performance" manually, only "performance" OR "security" (switchable with the space key). It was really strange.
The only thing that works was to select "security" and put all 4 drives in one array. After that the controller BIOS has switched to "security/performance" automatically.
If i had selected "performance" and put all drives in one array, i had an big Raid 0 with 4 HDD as result, of course.

Cheers
Thomas

[Blazer]

Thanks for clearing that up. 

[Maesus]

Security = RAID1
Performance = RAID0
Security + Performance = RAID 0 + 1