Windows 7 Software RAID. GOBSMAKING RESULTS!

Temi_D

Temi_D

Temi_D

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So I went on an hdd shopping spree and bought 2x500gb Samsung f3s and a single 1tb one. I was about to set them all up then I noticed that there were quite a few options in computer management. And googled them. It turns out that win7 professional and upwards have a software RAID function. I thought to myself: 'HA! yea right its probably crap'. But I decided to test it any way.

The results WILL SHOCK YOU! So I decided to write a mini review about it:D.
Using CrystalDiskMark 2.2 with 1000MB and 5 cycles

My specs:
Intel Q9650 @ 3.6GHz
Gigabyte GA-P43-ES3G (doesnt have hardware RAID)
the rest are in sig:p

Contents:

1. Computer management
2. Single 500GB f3
3-1. Software raided 2x500GB 1st run
3-2. Software raided 2x500GB 2nd run
4. Triple RAID with 2x500GB and a single 1TB f3 (didnt have a third 500GB drive)
5. Cpu usage, Task manager (less than 1%)
6. Conclusion

1. Computer management
hdd1.png



2. Single 500GB f3
f3normal.png



3. 2x500GB
hdd2.png

hdd3.png


3-1. 1st run
sfraidf3.png


3-2. 2nd run
sfraidf32.png



4. Triple raid
triraidscreen.png


SSD who?
tripleraid.png



5.
hddtaskmgr.png



6. Conclusion

WHY hasn't anyone EVER mentioned this before?!!! As you can see, this is a VERY useful feature and it DOESNT have any negative impact on performance

PROS:
-Lets you use TRIM with SSDs
-It lets those who's motherboards dont support raid have the benefits of RAID.
-It lets you have an unlimited (well...limited by number of sata ports) number of DIFFERENT RAID arrays
-Even if you already have hardware raid, you can add another array!
-Doesn't impact performance at all!
-Performs better than Hardware RAID?

CONS:
-you cannot boot from it:(

Recommended setup: have 2 ssds is raid 0 with hardware raid for windows/booting and have hdds in software RAID for speed as well!
 
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Raid zero I take it?

I'm not really sure why people don't rate software raid highly, I used mdadm based raid 5 for ages on the basis that it's easier to repair an array from within the OS than from the bios utility. Performance was good.

The drawbacks to raid zero are initial cost and increased chance of data loss from drive failure.
 
JonJ678 said:
The drawbacks to raid zero are initial cost and increased chance of data loss from drive failure.
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Considering I rarely made backups before going raid0, my chances of losing data have actually dropped.

The cost is a £65 1tb F3 vs 2x £41 500mb F3s = £17.

The main drawback is noise.
 
Your chances of data loss have actually doubled as RAID0 has no R (redundancy) so if one drive goes it all goes.

Doesn't stop me running my OS on a BIOS striped set though (F3s as well here), I keep anything that needs backed up on a server with proper RAID or USB stick.
 
Orangey said:
Doesn't stop me running my OS on a BIOS striped set though (F3s as well here), I keep anything that needs backed up on a server with proper RAID or USB stick.
Click to expand...

You forget human nature plays its part. You can only lose what you havent backed up ;)

Besides, in terms of the hardware, its not double. If the main cause of failure in the first 3 years is a power cut or spike, then there is a chance that both will be take out in the same event.
 
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JTrickle said:
You forget human nature plays its part. You can only lose what you havent backed up ;)
Click to expand...

If you have a fire or the building collapses then you could loose what you have backed up as well, not that I am suggesting that should happen of course :D.

JTrickle said:
Besides, in terms of the hardware, its not double. If the main cause of failure in the first 3 years is a power cut or spike, then there is a chance that both will be take out in the same event.
Click to expand...

Maybe it should be that you have significantly increased your risk by doubling your dependancy. Sure, an aircraft landing on your house is likely to kill both setups. A power cut or spike possibly unless the money saved on the second disk was used in the one disk system for a surge protector.

Having had a 7 disk SCSI 15K drive array running under software raid 0 with Windows 2000 and never having a problem I would be quite happy to recommend it as a 'cheap as chips' solution.

Now having said that, I have had a raid 0 array fail in my DNS-323 NAS box due to overheating (both drives failed in the end). No backup, no recovery. Luckily it was not data I classed as high priority.

If you have serious data that may be changed between backups and the changes would be hard to reapply then raid 1/5/10 are better solutions. Most home users would not have if they are not using the machine for business so raid 0 give a good cheap boost whether it is from software or hardware built in to the motherboard.

Oh and one more plus for non-motherboard based hardware raid (of any type) is that motherboard updates have been known to kill raid sets and Windows raid through disk manager it transferable if the machine goes down to another machine running the same or higher OS (not sure about between 200/XP/Win 7 but possibly).

As to why prople don't use it, well as you said yourself, you cannot boot from software raid and as the biggest gain will usually be with the OS being on the array, limited impact unless you are doing lots of disk heavy work (video editing etc).

RB
 
What happens when you reinstall W7, is it easy to get the array setup again so you don't lose the data?
Now I just need to find the mobo with the most SATA ports and PCI slots for more SATA cards :D
 
... a meaty power supply, aircon, ear defenders :p:D.

I put my SCSI drives in an old 'bay bought CDRom tower and attached bright blue lights to the activity pins. Looked great (apart from at night time when trying to sleep) but sounded like a low flying aricraft.

With Win2k it was just a case of popping in the disks and they would be recognised and setup as they were before (possibly needed to be imported in disk manager, it was a while ago :D).

Regards
RB
 
With regards to all the backup talk: raid0 should never be considered even vaguely related to backup.

At the same time, no raid should take the place of good backup procedure: at least father/son backups, and preferably more generations - and an occasional off-site backup won't do any harm.

I tend to go with a backup to a HDD in the same system for all the data, a weekly backup to an external system for the important stuff, and a copy of all the data in a different location.

Hard drives are relatively cheap, I don't see any reason to not have fairly recent backups.
 
I'm afraid i cant test raid-5 because it isnt natively supported, need third-party software
 
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I think i might need to do some tests tonight on my cheapo raid 0 card (SiL 2 port jobyy that isnt "rel" hardware raid) and see how it performs. Although I am using an F1 and an F3 1TB's

/me wishes for someone who wants an F1 (or F3) and wants to trade.
 
Temi_D said:
I afraid i cant test raid-5 because it isnt natively supported, need third-party software
Click to expand...

I used RAID5 on Windows XP with a very simple hack. I can't find any info on a similar hack for Win7 though. :(

Other than installing Linux in a VM and using mdadm...
 
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