Mixing ATA-66 w/ ATA-100 on RAID

[campos562]

Just a thought...
The other day while I was waiting for Photoshop to save a rather large file (which I am almost accustomed to), I became very curious about RAID. I now have a very reliable Maxtor 92049U6, a 20.4 gig(19.0 formatted, FAT32, Win98SE) 7200 RPM, 2 MB buffer, and ATA-66. Now that ATA-100 is so common, I am wondering if it is possible to mix my drive with an equivalent ATA-100 drive in a RAID configuration. How much slower is a "hybrid" configuration like I am considering than a pure ATA-100 config? The reason I am even considering mixing the two types is that I cannot find my exact disk anywhere--Pricewatch, Fry's, etc., and I don't want to buy two brand-new disks when I have this one that is great. Also, I have a 250 W powersupply feeding a TNT2 Ultra, a SoundBlaster Live!, a PCI modem, PCI network card, the above hard disk, a Zip 100, a standard 3.5" floppy, a DVD, a CD-RW, a Tyan Trinity 400 S1854 mobo, 128 MB PC133 SDRAM, and a P3 667 with three chassis fans. Is power going to be an issue? Right now I have a rock solid system (rock solid is a relative term, of course, considering I am running WinDoze98 ) I'll have to add a PCI card and another hard disk. Would it be worth it to get a 300W+ power supply to properly feed the new config?

[baconboy]

i am no raid expect but everything that i know of them is that you must have the exact same drive for it to work the way it was designed. i am sure you could get two drives with similar specs but i think you would be chancing the whole idea behind raid. i am wondering if you really need raid to begin with? if you make backups of your system regularly you wouldn't need to use raid. i guess you could go out and buy two new drives that are the same but would that cost be better than just making manual backups of your system?

as far as the power question goes, you should be alright with the 250 but you might want to look into getting a 300, maybe someone who knows more could help you out with this one. hope my input helps.

[http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum1/noncgi]

It depends on the type of RAID you are using.

If you have a two drive RAID 0 (stripe), it will run at about twice the speed of the slowest drive. If you have a four drive RAID 0, it will run at about three times the speed of the slowest drive.

If you have RAID 1 (mirror), then it will write at the speed of the slowest drive, and read at about twice the speed of the slowest drive.

[Khaz]

First the second part of your question. You do need a bigger power supply. Power problems are the last to be diganosed and can cause many many problems. I suggest enermax or other hi quality supply. As far as the second question I will let you know. I am currently looking for info on the subject because I am upgrading my system to a ABIT ST6-RAID Mainboard. If you e-mail me I will forward the links I find. [email protected] .
Also include the type of RAID controller you are using.

[Knucklehead]

If you buy a very similar Maxtor drive in ATA 100, it will probably work fine if you set both for ATA 66. I'm running the same thing with two WD drives on a Promise Fasttrak 100 card and it works exceptionally well, especially when opening 200 Meg Photoshop files. You might want to install two new drives though, because when you install the Raid, you must Fdisk and format them as a pair and you can't save any of the info on either drive. You could use the third drive for backing up files, because if either primary drive fails, you lose all. Raid 0/1 is excellent, but requires four drives and is still only as fast as the slowest drive. You definitely should go for a 300 watt power supply and an extra fan if you don't have so already. This is probably the single best improvement I've made to my computer, and I highly recommend it.

[Scuba]

YES -
you can Mix U66 and 100 on the same Raid.
Also - you can use diferant Hard drive sizes !!!
BUT -
the Raid size will be the size of the smaller Drive X No. of Drives.
so if you put a 10M & 20 M drives
the Raid size will be only 20M at the end.
also - unless you are using a Spesial IDE Raid card - dont Expect to create a Stabile Raid under W98 or Me (W2K is perfect).
also the performance of ide Raids that Dont use a Special IDE raid card and are based on Standard ide controllers and Softwware Raid (Under W2K) are Not that good.
If you want to see :
www.highvid.com/hardware/storage/a001/HD_test_1_1.htm

I hope this will help