bpoling

I just bought one of these. the documentation is sparse.Can i do 4 drives in raid 0. When do I format and partition? after setting raid, or each individual drive. Will F-disk recognize the raid array as a single drive. I'm using dual boot with winme and win2k on maxtor 45G drive. when installing drivers, which do I install first. If I can only use 2 drives in raid 0, then the additional connectors must mean I can use 4 drives in 0+1. Is this faster than 2 in raid 0. I have built my own computer so I am not a complete idiot, but the iwill manual presumes so much prior knowledge that I may be over my head. I'm glad it only cost $70 in case I have to eat it

Vermont Boy

I don't think I can answer everything, but maybe I can help with a couple of your questions. I have a Promise FastTrak RAID controller, so I'm assuming that setup is similar to the IWill.

1. You should be able to use 4 drives. It's usually recommended that you use identical drives (same manufacturer, size, and speed).

2. Formatting on mine was done after hooking the drives up to the controller. When you boot up you hit a key to get into the controller's setup utility and this sets up your array and formats the drives as one partition.

3. I don't know how FDisk will see the array. I should try it, but I would presume it sees one partition.

4. Install ME first and then Win2K. With Win2K you have to install the drivers at the beginning of setup when it asks for any third-party SCSI drivers. With ME you can wait till the OS is installed and then install the drivers, I believe. That's how 98 worked for me.

5. I'm not sure how RAID 0 compares to 0+1 as far as speed, but my guess would be that they are similar.

I hope this helps. If anyone has any corrections to what I said, please feel free to contribute.

__________________
Athlon 1200
Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS Pro
Asus A7M266 motherboard
256 MB PC2100 RAM
Promise FastTrak 100 RAID controller
2x40GB W. Digital hard drives
TDK 16/10/40 CD-Writer
Kenwood 72X CD-ROM
Philips Acoustic Edge soundcard
Klipsch Promedia v.2-400 speakers
Lian-Li PC60 case

DoPeY5007

I think that Vermont Boy said it all...

I have the iWill side raid....


as the bugs say "RAID"


hehehe


but yeah as far as I know he answerd them all right....


I have my two 30's on the raid, so in fdisk it looked like one 60...

I formated them back in to 2 30's ( on for 98 & 1 4 2k )

have fun with your RAID!!!...