Setting Up RAID Array, Mirroring - Need Help, Please
I have tried, unsuccessfully, to connect two EIDE hard drives in a mirror array so that they display in the Giga IT8212 Stup Utility as Pri/D0 with Sec/DO or Pri/D1 with Sec/D1. I can get Pri/D0 with Pri/D1 or Pri/D0 with Sec/D1, but in order to successfully setup a mirror, the manual says I need both to display as D0 or D1. I have sent several emails to their tech support, but their replys don't seem to answer my questions.
1. Do I need to connect each hard drive to the motherboard with its own cable or should I daisy chain them with the same data cable?
2. Exactly which IDE ports should the cable or cables be attached to? I have the schematic from the manual and on page 11, it looks like my options are IDE1, IDE2, IDE3 and IDE4.
3. Also, how should I set the jumpers on my hard drives,? My options are:
1 -master
2-master with slave
3-slave
4-cable select
4. Finally, my CD drives are currently connected to IDE2 so if I need to use that port for one of the hard drives, is there a preferred location to move that to?
If anyone can help, I would greatly appreciate it!
Marge E.
1. Do I need to connect each hard drive to the motherboard with its own cable or should I daisy chain them with the same data cable?
2. Exactly which IDE ports should the cable or cables be attached to? I have the schematic from the manual and on page 11, it looks like my options are IDE1, IDE2, IDE3 and IDE4.
3. Also, how should I set the jumpers on my hard drives,? My options are:
1 -master
2-master with slave
3-slave
4-cable select
4. Finally, my CD drives are currently connected to IDE2 so if I need to use that port for one of the hard drives, is there a preferred location to move that to?
If anyone can help, I would greatly appreciate it!
Marge E.
0
Comments
I assume this board has 4 IDE ports and no SATA.
Your Boot drive would go on IDE1 your Optical drives on IDE2 and the Raid drives on IDE3 & IDE4
I have used this controller in the past and it is very easy to work with...
You should jumper each drive to Cable Select, that allows you to plug the drive into the black connector for master or the grey connector for a slave. (NEVER use the Master w/Slave option as that is a carry over from the days of older ATA specs for drives that would no report correctly.)
Using two 80 pin ribbon cables you would connect the BLACK connector of each cable to a drive and the BLUE connectors to the IDE/RAID ports on the motherboard.
This will give you a Primary Master and a Secondary Master.
(Raiding IDE drives on the same cable can give you more headache than it's worth if something goes wrong, unlike SCSI, IDE drives have no smarts at all.)
Then the CTRL-G on boot up and 1 to auto configure selecting Mirror or Stripe as your type of raid.
I personally never boot raid drives, I only use them for data storage.
If you are adding a second drive to your boot drive and trying to mirror or stripe it.
You have a great chance of loosing all your data on the boot drive.
BACKUP FIRST
Hope this cleared things up a bit...
I have a good ghost image of my drive on an external drive if I need to go back - I hear and heed what you are saying about backups.
I do, however, want to boot off this raid mirror. Would I still go ahead and connect the drives to IDE3 and IDE4 or move them to 1 and 2 then move my optical drives down to 3? Or doesn't it really matter?
Thanks for the help!
When you install you will have to press F6 at the blue windows screen, It will prompt you in the white bar at the bottom and happens rather quick. This is so you can install the driver for the controller, otherwise windows will have no drives to install on.
You will need the driver disk ready for the IT8212 with files unzipped to the root directory of the floppy (It will have a txtsetup.oem file there as well as driver files or directories) leave the floppy throughout the complete install as it will copy the files off of the floppy.
The array will show up in windows under SCSI devices and show a raid drive in the drives section.
IDE raid arrays are not robust, if one of the drives packs in a controller, it is possible that it will electrically lock up the IT812 chip and cause the other drive not to work... I have seen this once and it was remedied when the bad drive was removed (Controller was burnt)
I always use a boot drive instead of booting a raid array, a lot simpler to fix when all goes bad... (Not IF but WHEN)
But we mostly use SCSI-LVD or SATA raid controllers and tend to shy away from the onboard stuff. That way there are spare drives in the mix etc, (SCSI drives can disconnect from the channel) the controller looks after the rebuild etc...
Not to dampen your fun, just some hard facts...
Hope this helps again and let us know how you make out!