MaximumPC 2004 11

Intel’s Application Accelerator allows

you to keep tabs on your array. As you

can see in this screenshot, both the

striped and mirrored arrays are fully

functional. This utility allows you to

monitor your arrays’ status, and will

warn you if it detects an impending

failure or actual failure with one of the

disks in the array.

Installing the RAID utility is optional,

but we recommend it. Remember that

although the data on your mirrored vol-

ume is safe if one of your hard drives

fails, all of the data on the striped vol-

ume is toast if one drive fails. If while

running the striped array the Intel RAID

utility ever warns you your drives are

going to fail, back up the data on the

striped volume immediately! n

Build a volume for raw speed

Now that your mirrored volume is created, it’s time to create a speedy

striped volume. Select “Create RAID volume,” and choose “RAID 0.” You’ll

need to choose a stripe size—we generally recommend either 64KB or

128KB for optimal day-to-day use. Then simply select “Create Volume.”

.

STEP 2

How To

66 MA XIMUMPC NOVEMBER 2004

Install Windows

Installing Windows on a Matrix RAIDed volume is the same as installing an

OS on any other RAID array. Boot off the Windows CD, then Press F6 when

Windows prompts you to “Install a third party SCSI or RAID driver” and

insert the floppy disc that came with your mobo when prompted.

When Windows asks which partition to install Windows to, make sure

you choose the mirrored partition that you created first. Frequently the

only way to tell partitions apart is by noting their size (remember, our mir-

rored partition was 80GB total). After you choose the proper partition, the

Windows install should proceed as normal.

STEP 3

Managing the volumes

Once Windows is installed, you’ll need to format your striped partition so you

can begin using it. Open the Computer Management applet (Control Panel >

Administrative Tools > Computer Management) and click Disk Management.

You should see separate drives for each of the volumes in your RAID array.

If you followed our directions, the drive labeled Drive 0 should be your mir-

rored volume, and the drive labeled Drive 1 should be your striped volume.

Even though you already created the striped partition earlier, the space will

show up in Windows as being unallocated. To correct this and activate the

volume, right-click the unallocated space and select “Create Partition.” Follow

the instructions in the wizard, and once it’s done, you should be able to

access the striped volume, just like any other hard drive.

STEP 4

Install Intel’s RAID utility

STEP 5

WHAT ABOUT PERFORMANCE?

In order to determine whether running

two distinct arrays across two drives

diminishes either array’s performance,

we benchmarked each array using HD

Tach 2.61. We’re happy to report that per-

formance for both arrays was compara-

ble to what we’ve seen with single-array

RAID configurations.

HD TACH 2.61 RAID 0 RAID 1

AV. SEQ. READ SPEED (MB/SEC) 109 65.35

BURST RATE (MB/SEC) 197 112

RANDOM ACCESS TIME (MS) 7.7 6.7

Notes: Results are for a two-drive array consisting

of WD 740GD Raptors.