Anyone ever set up RAID-1 with HPT370 controller?

I'm thinking about setting up RAID-1 on my KT7-RAID (yeah, ancient I know).
Has anyone ever done that on any motherboard that uses the HPT370 controller?
Just wondering if there are any problems I should be aware of. I did find the
following thread from someone who couldn't get it to work on a Windows 2000
system. And I happen to be running Windows 2000...

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...42cec546fca37d

Also, does anyone know how the Highpoint 370 controller works?

Does it immediately stop using a disk once it detects a bad sector?

And does it use the "active/active" scheme (evenly splits reads between the 2
disks so a bad sector on either disk can be discovered) or the
"active/standby" scheme (writes to both disks but only reads from one disk,
meaning that a bad sector could develop on the other disk and go unnoticed
until the 'main' disk fails, at which point both disks are screwed)?

the Highpoint controller is not an intelligent controller from the point of
failure avoidance such as detecting and blocking out bad sectors, etc. I
would say that if data security is your primary objective, the Highpoint and
other raid controllers that are onboard or added into consumer mobo's is not
a good option, personal opinion.

we've seen more posts over time about how to force the Highpoint to recover
from a failed drive in a raid 1 setup than I can recall someone posting
about how the raid 1 setup saved their butt from a data recovery point of
view.

my personal view is that if data security is paramount, then regular, daily
backups using a full, baseline backup and then incremental backups onto a
device that is external to the computer is best. again, this is just my
opinion.

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified



<> wrote in message
news:...
> I'm thinking about setting up RAID-1 on my KT7-RAID (yeah, ancient I
> know).
> Has anyone ever done that on any motherboard that uses the HPT370
> controller?
> Just wondering if there are any problems I should be aware of. I did find
> the
> following thread from someone who couldn't get it to work on a Windows
> 2000
> system. And I happen to be running Windows 2000...
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...42cec546fca37d
>

On Tue, 3 Jan 2006 06:57:51 -0500, "TomG" <> wrote:

>the Highpoint controller is not an intelligent controller from the point of
>failure avoidance such as detecting and blocking out bad sectors, etc. I
>would say that if data security is your primary objective, the Highpoint and
>other raid controllers that are onboard or added into consumer mobo's is not
>a good option, personal opinion.
>
>we've seen more posts over time about how to force the Highpoint to recover
>from a failed drive in a raid 1 setup than I can recall someone posting
>about how the raid 1 setup saved their butt from a data recovery point of
>view.
>
>my personal view is that if data security is paramount, then regular, daily
>backups using a full, baseline backup and then incremental backups onto a
>device that is external to the computer is best. again, this is just my
>opinion.

That's disappointing to hear. What about those PCI RAID controller cards that
are between $20 and $70? Are those any good?

good is a relative term. I have been a user of raid 0, for performance
benefits, from the onset of the Highpoint 370 on Abit boards. however, in
this level of "consumer" grade raid controller which is largely dependant on
driver-driven technology, you see a vast separation from the true controller
hardware dependant raid devices that support full hot-swapping and live
recovery.

those controllers/hardware packages have a *significant* $$ cost, mostly
justified by the data security they provide.

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified



<> wrote in message
news:...
> On Tue, 3 Jan 2006 06:57:51 -0500, "TomG" <> wrote:
>
>>the Highpoint controller is not an intelligent controller from the point
>>of
>>failure avoidance such as detecting and blocking out bad sectors, etc. I
>>would say that if data security is your primary objective, the Highpoint
>>and
>>other raid controllers that are onboard or added into consumer mobo's is
>>not
>>a good option, personal opinion.
>>
>>we've seen more posts over time about how to force the Highpoint to
>>recover
>>from a failed drive in a raid 1 setup than I can recall someone posting
>>about how the raid 1 setup saved their butt from a data recovery point of
>>view.
>>
>>my personal view is that if data security is paramount, then regular,
>>daily
>>backups using a full, baseline backup and then incremental backups onto a
>>device that is external to the computer is best. again, this is just my
>>opinion.
>
> That's disappointing to hear. What about those PCI RAID controller cards
> that
> are between $20 and $70? Are those any good?
>

Hmm, do you know if the HPT370 at least works mirroring-wise in RAID-1 mode?
Hopefully it works fine in maintaining an array of 2 disks that are exact
mirrors of each other. From what you're saying, it sounds like it doesn't
really do anything if there's bad sectors on the disks... it will just read
from or write to a bad sector without giving you any notification? And does
it even know if drive has totally failed?

in all honesty, I can't say exactly what the behavior of the 370 in
mirroring mode is... but I *believe* it simply relies on the hard drive to
manage itself and does nothing more than send a redundant data stream to two
devices.

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified



<> wrote in message
news:...
> Hmm, do you know if the HPT370 at least works mirroring-wise in RAID-1
> mode?
> Hopefully it works fine in maintaining an array of 2 disks that are exact
> mirrors of each other. From what you're saying, it sounds like it doesn't
> really do anything if there's bad sectors on the disks... it will just
> read
> from or write to a bad sector without giving you any notification? And
> does
> it even know if drive has totally failed?
>