What is RAID?

[B.Calhoun]

When customizing computers, it says next to the mobo sometimes w/ RAID. What is RAID and RAID settings?(Striped drives? Mirrior drives?)

 

[Asus]

RAID is a way to combine drives for performance or redundancy/data protection.
There are several levels of RAID but the main two are RAID 1 and RAID 0.

RAID 0 is stripping where 2 same drives are combined to increase possible performance. Generally it is used with 2 cheaper drives to perform similar to a highend drive at a lower cost. It writes/reads from both drives at the same time as data is split between the drives.

RAID 1 is mirroring where 2 same drives are combined to make sure important data is not lost or insure there is no down time. If a drive fails then the other drive containts all of the exact same information so you never lost the data.

RAID Overview
Review

 

[B.Calhoun]

ah ok thanks

 

[Hazar]

Redundant
Array of
Inexpensive
Disks

 

[Darkknighttt]

raid is an ant and roach repellant.

 

[bosox188]

I have a 30gb hdd right now and I just found a 60gb Hitachi Deskstar lying around near my old computer, I'm gonna put that in. Can I put both drives in a RAID? They're both 7200 rpm if that matters.

 

[Asus]

If you have the RAID feature on your board or if you bought a RAID expantion card then you probably could.
It's possible they would be limited to 30GB and 30GB so they are matching, with 30GB unused on your 60GB.

 

[Synthos]

is it possible to put SATA drives in a RAID array? *drools*

 

[Asus]

SATA was built for it.
BTW you should look at the Review I posted above. The real tests are towards the end. There are a lot of synthetic tests there.
Compare Single drive vs RAID 0 or even RAID 1.

Though buying a RAID controller card is better than using Onboard for performance.