Matrix RAID: Pros and Cons?

trentlad

trentlad

trentlad

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It really sounds like the Matrix RAID maybe the choice for me. Seems to give the best of both worlds, with RAID 0 for your 'OS' partition and RAID 1 for your 'data' partition.

1.) Has anyone tried it?
2.) If one HDD fails does this truly mean the RAID 1 partition on the working HDD will save all my data?
3.) If I were to setup two HDD's in RAID 0 (no partitions), how does the speed/bench compare to the RAID 0 in the Matrix?

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I'm overwhelmed by the response guys, wow!!

Here's some more info on the configuration.

Intel's Matrix RAID technology allows users to combine RAID 0 and 1 arrays with only two drives, promising mirrored redundancy for important data and striped performance for speedy access.
Click to expand...
 
1) it's a weekend, so people are quite rightly enjoying their free time. 2) you don't need two threads and 3) I replied in the other one!
 
I used it for a while in the config you have shown. Worked fine and mirrored section does work just like a regular RAID 1. Just remember that if you lose a drive your RAID 0 holding your OS will be blown away. So you replace the dead disk, re-establish the matrix RAID through the Ctrl-I menu then reinstall the OS. Make sure you add the RAID driver during install if needed depending on OS. Once done you should then be able to see the RAID 1 which should rebuild automatically. Note that you have to be booted into windows for the mirror to rebuild - its software assisted so it requires windows and the RAID driver to be running. You should install the Intel storage manager as this will tell you when the rebuild is done.

Performance wise it seemed about the same as with a normal RAID setup.

Hope this helps. Good Luck!
 
GeezerButler that was very helpful. Thank you!!

After reading that I promptly hooked up the two drives and I'm now talking to you with my system in a Matrix RAID. YAAY!

I used Windows 7 so I didn't need a driver during OS instillation. When I looked at Disk Management I saw the RAID 1 array unformatted and I just formatted it to MBR as I would any other drive. Is that what's supposed to happen or did I do something wrong, because you mentioned "rebuilding" the RAID 1 array so I'm scared now.

Three questions for you GeezerButler:
1.) If everything went as it was supposed to then do I even require RAID drivers to be installed onto Windows 7?
2.)I know W7 comes with Intel RAID drivers built in but there is apparently an 'Intel Matrix Storage Manager'. Do I need that? Is there more to it than showing the health (??) of my separate HDDs?
3.)Also why did you move away from the Matrix RAID, was there something you didn't like about it that made you move?

These benches are insane:
b4x1rp.png
 
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Question. I dont know a great deal about setting up raids.

I set both my drives as Raid 0, I then partitioned them in windows. Can you make different raids with the same drives then. eg 100gig OS/etc 100gig Games (both Raid 0) 100gig Data (Raid 1).
 
Yep, that's exactly what I've done with two HDDs. It's setup as shown in the image within my first post.

My motherboards onboard RAID controller is capable of Intel Matrix Technology. This is what allowed me to create two seperate RAID arrays across just two HDDs.

I'm still researching on it's downfalls, hopefully a few others will chime in.

At the moment though it really seems like a great way to get a ridiculously speedy RAID 0 partition and also a secure backup with RAID 1 on another partition. All on just two drives!

You won't get the 'full' speed of a basic RAID 0 setup regardless of what the benchmarks say. Let's say you're encoding video and the OS and encoding software is stored on the RAID 0 partition but the video file is stored on the RAID 1 partition. The same reading head that is accessing the RAID 0 partition is also having to access the RAID 1 partition. You'll be loosing performance in those kind of scenarios, which can be avoided to an extent.
 
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Give your System Drive (RAID 0) some redundancy by making an image of it (ghost/acronis etc) and storing it on your RAID 1 drive..

If you install the boot manager with imaging software, then you can boot and rebuild the image if the disc goes pop.
 
You betcha! I've been a big advocator of doing this pre-RAID.

I like to use Acronis True Image; takes 2 minutes to back up my OS drive or 15 minutes to restore. Literally the same as reinstalling Windows from scratch, installing all your software, adjusting all your settings, applying tweaks, and defragging the entire thing... in a matter of 15 minutes! Can't beat it.

I think I use it a little too much, if firefox starts to slow down... pop.. it's back to full speed again. :D

However, since my OS drive is in ultra-fast RAID 0 I've been installing steam and other apps on here to make them load faster (haven't noticed a blind bit of difference tbh). Is there a way to omit a specific folder from the Acronis imaging?
 
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trentlad,

Glad you have it up and running. Easy eh? Don't worry about the rebuilding bit - that only applies if a RAID 1 fails and you have to replace a drive. As to your questions:

With Windows 7 you don't need drivers to run matrix raid. However, you might want to get the Matrix Storage Manager for two reasons:

a) You can monitor the array status in Windows and will be alerted should a failure occur.
b) You can enable 'Write Back Caching' on the array. This may improve your performance. I think (I'm not an expert) that this works in a similar way to the write caching on real hardware RAID cards. Write back used to give me a huge boost in benchmarks, but never noticed a massive difference in actual system performance.

I have never tried the Matrix manager with the Microsoft drivers. You may need the 'real' Intel drivers to get it working.

As for why I changed? I got an SSD to boot from and dedicated my two WD 640GB drives to a games only RAID 0 volume.
 
Thanks for checking back GeezerButler!

It really was easy, surprisingly easy actually. I literally booted up my system with only the two balnk HDDs installed, enabled RAID in my BIOS, hit Ctrl+I to access the RAID menu and set RAID 0 details then RAID 1 details. Then it just worked! I booted with the Windows 7 install CD and it recognised two 'standard' HDDs which were deceptively the RAID 0 array and the RAID 1 array.

I may still post a few pictures of the options so others can see how easy it is to setup. It quite literally is as easy as setting it up then forgetting about it.

I did install the Matrix Storage Manager, it's handy to see the health if I suspect anything in future and I also enabled write caching on the RAID 0 array.

One question; What do you mean by installing the real Intel drivers "to get it working"? Is a Matrix RAID supposed to do something else, other than fooling windows into think my two RAID arrays are two HDDs?
 
trentlad,

As long as you have the Matrix Manager running you're golden. I had only ever used it with the drivers downloaded from Intel, so wasn't sure if it worked with the Microsoft provided driver.

Matrix RAID doesn't do anything else - it just allows you to do multiple RAID volumes with fewer drives than you would normally need.

Did you benchmark again after enabling Write Caching?
 
Thanks a lo mate!

Yes I did bench after enabling write cache and it gave me a 30% boost in performance point I did post the screen shot on OcUK in another thread but I can't link to it from my phone. (the raid bench thread)
 
Ok I'm back now.

There was quite a boost in benchmarks after enabling write cache but in personal user experience I noticed absolutely none! So I'm not quite sure if it's worth the aforementioned risk of enabling write cache in case of power loss or failed sleep events.

Below are benches with;

Write cache disabled:
b4x1rp.png


Write cache enabled:
5ls5jd.png
 
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