How do I "RAID" a second hard drive???

[Testosterone boy]

I need to do this so I can edit hours of video on the computer at high resolution.

Sorry about being a computer dummie.

I hear this is what I have to do. First hard drive is getting filled up. Bought a 120GB that is almost empty and works but is too slow for some reason despite having good specs.

 

[ohashi]

Tell the feds it had tren and winny delivered recently.

 

[NWinters]

Tell the feds it had tren and winny delivered recently.

LOL...Wrong kind of raid....do a google search on RAID 0

 

[Dial_tone]

You need to buy a RAID controller. It will be a card that goes into a PCI slot in the computer. You will connect the drives that you want to RAID to that controller instead of the IDE controller on the motherboard. Something like the Promise FastTrak series of cards. This will be "hardware RAID". You can do software RAID w/o RAID card but it won't give you the performance you're seeking.

 

[Dial_tone]

RAID 0 is also called mirroring. You don't want this. It reads data faster but it writes data slower than a single drive. Everything you do gets written to the first drive, then the second drive.
RAID 1 aka striping is what you want. Data is alternatingly written to each drive.
You really want RAID 5 but this will cost you dearly.

 

[Testosterone boy]

Thanks Dial Tone, hopefully I can go Raid 1 for a hundred or so? Not incl. the added HD of course.

 

[Dial_tone]

Actually, I reversed those terms. You *DO* want RAID 0, not RAID 1.

 

[Dial_tone]

You want something like this:

http://www.promise.com/product/product_detail_eng.asp?productId=108&familyId=2

Most cards will do RAID 0, RAID 1 and some combinations. That card will run you $125-150.

 

[ManOfArms]

Thanks Dial Tone, hopefully I can go Raid 1 for a hundred or so? Not incl. the added HD of course.

If your computer was purchased recently, check to see if it already has a raid connection already integrated into your motherboard, consult the manual. The connecter will be color coded... on my mother board its blue, It could also be red.

 

[Testosterone boy]

If your computer was purchased recently, check to see if it already has a raid connection already integrated into your motherboard, consult the manual. The connecter will be color coded... on my mother board its blue, It could also be red.

It is 2 years and a month old. Not a high end model. P4 1.7 ghz


I think I lost the manual. I may go to the store where I bought it and ask what would work. They have a record of it since it is their own line of computer.

 

[Dial_tone]

Just be very careful whether you buy ATA or SATA.

ATA = regular drive cables
SATA = newer smaller serial drive cables, you probably don't have these but I could be wrong. Just check.

 

[the nature boy]

he might be able to do software raid but that will put more overhead on the system compared to hardware raid. although I've never heard of software raid on non-scsi/fibre channel disk, but I'm sure its possible.

 

[OMGWTFBBQ]

RAID 0, like a few others have said.

Also note that usually the two disks should be exactly the same.

Another thing to note is that if you go with a hardware RAID controller (which you should in this case) and it fails, in order for your system to work correctly you will need the same brand (and ideally model number as well) RAID controller put back in.
This is why it is usually frowned upon to rely on an on board RAID controller - although it is cheap.

I personally haven't had issues with them, but after 5 years or so some of the servers at work are starting to die now and their RAID controllers are ancient and we can't replace them - it is causing some issues and lost data (not an huge deal since we have backups on tape).

In the end, RAID 0 is the only one that I know of that will make it faster.

Even then, you could probably set it up without RAID and just setup one disk as your OS disk and then one as the swap disk - ideally probably a 3rd as out and out storage.

Also, they make disks specifically for DV editing and I think they are usually specified as "AV rated" or something like that.

 

[Dial_tone]

he might be able to do software raid but that will put more overhead on the system compared to hardware raid. although I've never heard of software raid on non-scsi/fibre channel disk, but I'm sure its possible.

2K/XP will do software raid with ide or scsi. It's just not really worth it. If you have to reinstall the OS you lose the RAID array.

 

[OMGWTFBBQ]

2K/XP will do software raid with ide or scsi. It's just not really worth it. If you have to reinstall the OS you lose the RAID array.

Software RAID is fine for mirroring if it isn't a processor intensive task that the server is running (file sharing usually is a good example).

But I can't imagine doing anything beyond that in software - not saying it can't be done - just not sure why you would want to.

 

[Testosterone boy]

RAID 0, like a few others have said.

Also note that usually the two disks should be exactly the same.

Another thing to note is that if you go with a hardware RAID controller (which you should in this case) and it fails, in order for your system to work correctly you will need the same brand (and ideally model number as well) RAID controller put back in.
This is why it is usually frowned upon to rely on an on board RAID controller - although it is cheap.

I personally haven't had issues with them, but after 5 years or so some of the servers at work are starting to die now and their RAID controllers are ancient and we can't replace them - it is causing some issues and lost data (not an huge deal since we have backups on tape).

In the end, RAID 0 is the only one that I know of that will make it faster.

Even then, you could probably set it up without RAID and just setup one disk as your OS disk and then one as the swap disk - ideally probably a 3rd as out and out storage.

Also, they make disks specifically for DV editing and I think they are usually specified as "AV rated" or something like that.

Well it would be 100 times easier just to get a hard drive made for DV editiing. I just look for "AV rated" it would appear.

 

[Delinquent]

Just for redundancy sake, remember that RAID 0 is not very fault tolerant. What this means is that if one HDD goes down, you'll lose all your data b/c the data is being split and written to each HDD thus making it faster.

 

[Testosterone boy]

Just for redundancy sake, remember that RAID 0 is not very fault tolerant. What this means is that if one HDD goes down, you'll lose all your data b/c the data is being split and written to each HDD thus making it faster.

Yes....it was recommneded that edited results be put on an additional hard drive.

I do not have a high end computer, there is really no room for 4 hard drives. The first hard drive is almost full and now useless for quality video editing.

 

[Dial_tone]

I think what you really need is a FireWire drive. That's the only single drive interface that'll give you high enough "sustained" transfer rates for video editing. IDE won't do it and USB 2.0 might not even do it. One of my friends at work is big into that but he's a Mac guy. A PC will likely not have a FireWire connector unless it's really new and I believe yours wasn't. You should be able to get a PCI slot FireWire port.