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Recycling some old hardware. We're combining two older computers into a data server for the office - it'll have two 500 GB drives in raid 0, and two 200 gB drives in raid 0, and a 2 TB for weekly backups.

On the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R Motherboard, there are 6 yellow SATA connectors and 2 purple.

I believe it's important not to connect two hard drives intended for RAID across the purple and yellow.

As for the 6 yellow ones, they seem to be in 3 pairs. Should we connect our RAID drives on the same pairs, or different ones?

Cheers.

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    Seriously, think about what you are doing. Running a file server on RAID 0 is a BIG misstep, NEVER, ever use RAID 0 for file storage. I assume these files are at least mildly useful if you plan weekly backups. Check what the controller can handle and possible go for RAID 0+1 or RAID 10, hell even RAID 5 is better... At the very least put them in a RAID 1. If one drive fails in a RAID 0 all data is lost permanently. Feb 7, 2013 at 2:25
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    Anyway,now that is out of the way: plug any RAID drives into the yellow ones, they are on the same Intel controller, the purple SATA plugs are for the gigabyte controller. Also make sure to set said controller to RAID in BIOS. Feb 7, 2013 at 2:26
  • Thanks Kyle, we set up RAID 5 on your recommendation (scavenged another drive).
    – Alex
    Feb 9, 2013 at 7:51

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As mentioned in the comments, the 6 yellow SATA ports are on your Raid Controller (you probably need to set it to RAID mode in the BIOS if it isn't already).

The two purple connectors are for the other controller. Use this for a DVD-RW drive, etc.

My recommendation for you is to avoid RAID0 completely. Striping data is asking for trouble if the data is of ANY significance to your organisation. A single disk failure in a stripe results in complete loss of all data. I'm yet to work in any organisation where any data loss is considered acceptable.

If the only drives you have available are the drives you mentioned, I'd suggest using the two smaller drivers in RAID1 and install your OS on that. Then use the two larger drives in RAID1 and use that to store your data. This setup will allow you to continue functioning in the event of a single hard drive failure on either array.

However, if the combined space available when in RAID 1 is not enough for your needs, A more ideal setup would be to use either of the two drive sets you have in RAID1 for the OS (probably the 500gb drives as I'd imagine they would be newer) and install the OS on that. Then get 4x brand new drives (3TB if you can) and put them in RAID 10 (6TB accessible), or RAID5 (9TB accessible) on the remaining 4 ports. Put your data on that.

You could even simply buy 2x 3TB drives and put in RAID1. Halving your costs.

Hope this helps.

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    Hi Dave, thanks for the detailed response and advice. We ended up scavenging another 500 GB drive to put the data in a 1TB RAID5 (keeping OS on 200GB raid 0 - programs and OS can be reinstalled without too much trouble if the data is stored separately).
    – Alex
    Feb 9, 2013 at 7:50

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