Need advice on RAID 10 setup running Windows XP

TeaganP

TeaganP

TeaganP

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Dear members of Overclockers forum...

I was just wondering if you could help me in sorting a problem out that I'm having with a computer that I'm in the process of building. I am putting Windows XP on a RAID system and soon I shall be buying some of the latest hard drives for it from Overclockers. I am gonna get 4 Western Digital Hard Drives with 1 TB on each (the 64MB cache ones). I am going to build the 4 drives in RAID 10 or RAID 0+1 as they call it also.

There is no problem with me using my motherboard for RAID as I have a ASUS P5Q Deluxe board and it can take up to 6 RAID SATA ports in total. The problem is that once I have set the RAID up so that half my system will be striped and the other half (the other 2 TB's) will be mirrored, if I put Windows XP on this setup then what happens if I have a problem with XP once it's installed and I have to reinstall it again? I mean that if I have all my files on the RAID together then if I have to reinstall Windows XP again will it mean I will have to completely delete everything in order to get XP back on my machine again and get it running?

Normally I use McAfee Total Protection 2009 to protect my system so it's usually rare that I have a problem but sometimes I know how it is and you can get spyware or something that can damage the operating system leaving you with the only option to reinstall it completely.

What I do currently is to partition my 2 hard drives into different partitions (4 partitions but nothing like a RAID setup) and I find that putting my Windows XP installation on the first partition on the first drive means that I only have to format the first partition without losing the rest of the data stored on the other partitions.

How will this change over to a RAID 10 affect me compared to the old way I've got it set up? If I have to wipe everything on the RAID because of the fact XP has stopped working, do I have to lose everything on the RAID?

Thanks in advance for your reply/replies...

I hope I can gain more of an understanding of RAID before I eventually buy some hard drives that will probably cost me around £300 nearly in total...
 
Firstly RAID10 is not the same as RAID0+1. RAID10 is striped mirrors and RAID0+1 is mirrored stripes, they may sound the same but they're not, RAID10 provides better fault tolerance. Both can survive a single HDD failure but RAID0+1 cannot survive a second fail on the remaining stripe whereas RAID10 can survive a second fail anywhere other than the mirror of the first fail.

Once the array is created the OS will see it as a single volume which can be partitioned any way you like so just treat it the way you treat your drives now.
 
Oh wow... that's cool! I thought they were the same RAID 10 and the other one, just named differently. I guess really the one I'm gonna set up will be RAID 10. It says exactly how to do it all in my motherboard manual, ASUS is pretty good really and I like how they explain things in the manual.

So from what you're saying I can set the RAID up first and then before I start thinking about putting Windows XP on I can use a partition manager program like Paragon Partition Manager and boot that from the floppies. Once loaded up I can just create partitions within the RAID volume. Following to that once I have created some NTFS partitions I can then format them and install Windows XP on the first one like I am doing at the moment.

I currently have 2 Western Digital hard drives that are 320 GBs each and what I do I split them both up in half so I get something around 150 GBs for each of the 4 partitions and then in Windows call them Drive C: / D: / E: and F:

I didn't think you could partition a RAID volume because I thought it was different to just having drives with single partitions on them like I have currently. This is why I wanted to ask people on here to try and understand more about what to do before I actually do it. I am hoping to buy these 1TB drives next month at some point, plus I am going to get 64MB cache so hopefully it will be very fast. I want it to be fast otherwise I wouldn't be spending a fair bit of money on drives. Interesting question really and that is that if I can from what you're saying partition on the RAID volume then if I am using 4 1TB hard drives (2 stripe and 2 mirror), is there actually a limit to the size of the partitions I should be creating? What I mean when I say that is that because I am using Windows XP that if I make partitions that are quite big then could it make them unstable and possibly turn corrupt one day by accident. So really if I'm making a RAID volume with 4 TBs worth of disk space then exactly how many times would you say would be good to partition the 2 GBs that I'm gonna be using? Would 4 times be good do you think or maybe a bit on the big side? So say for example 4 partitions on a 4 TB RAID is gonna work out roughly about 500 GBs per partition? Would 500 GBs be far too big for Windows XP to handle? What about making more than that and having more partitions instead say 250 GBs each? So 8 partitions across the whole RAID volume?
 
You're not going to have 4Tb of space. A 4*1Tb RAID10 array will appear to the system as a single 2Tb volume. XP can cope with anything up to that so you could carve off 100Gb or so for the C: drive and have the rest as D:

No point in using any form of partitioning software ahead of installing XP, just get the installer to create the C: partition the size you want then do the rest in Disk Management once the OS is installed.
 
Yes I know that already, I said 2 TB stripe and 2 TB mirror so yes I already know that I will have 2 TBs within the whole volume to work within as a maximum. Obviously the other 2 TBs is the copy of the striped volume, that's the whole point of having a RAID.

Why not use Paragon Partition Manager instead of doing it in Windows XP? Would it not work correctly using Paragon? I want to have a fairly large partition to put Windows XP on so I can just use it for the XP installation plus all the programs and also games I will be installing. I have quite a lot of games that take up large amounts of hard drive space plus other programs like music packages that are really massive, no way would 100 GBs be big enough. 500 GBs would be more like it just as long as it isn't gonna become unstable.

I like Paragon, it's a good program, I used to use it more in the days when I was installing dual boots for Suse Linux and XP together, although I don't bother with Linux anymore, it's far too hard for me to get into, I just remained an XP user as I was far too frustrated with Suse.
 
TeaganP said:
Yes I know that already, I said 2 TB stripe and 2 TB mirror so yes I already know that I will have 2 TBs within the whole volume to work within as a maximum. Obviously the other 2 TBs is the copy of the striped volume, that's the whole point of having a RAID.

Why not use Paragon Partition Manager instead of doing it in Windows XP? Would it not work correctly using Paragon? I want to have a fairly large partition to put Windows XP on so I can just use it for the XP installation plus all the programs and also games I will be installing. I have quite a lot of games that take up large amounts of hard drive space plus other programs like music packages that are really massive, no way would 100 GBs be big enough. 500 GBs would be more like it just as long as it isn't gonna become unstable.

I like Paragon, it's a good program, I used to use it more in the days when I was installing dual boots for Suse Linux and XP together, although I don't bother with Linux anymore, it's far too hard for me to get into, I just remained an XP user as I was far too frustrated with Suse.
Click to expand...

The question should be why would you want to use paragon, you're installing software thats not required, disk manager will do all you need...

Pick which ever size of partition suits you... partition size wont effect stability... You want to be thinking more about cluster and allignment.
 
ecksmen said:
The question should be why would you want to use paragon, you're installing software thats not required, disk manager will do all you need...

Pick which ever size of partition suits you... partition size wont effect stability... You want to be thinking more about cluster and allignment.
Click to expand...

So you're talking about Disk Manager in Windows XP? You mean in Administrative Tools/Computer Mangagement/Disk Management? You mean use that to partition with? Why on earth are you telling me to use that when I can just simply boot the machine up with Paragon from the floppy disks (not install software) and then use Paragon to create some partitions within a RAID volume? I am talking about the fact that how on earth are you supposed to shrink NTFS partitions in Windows XP alone and then create other ones when you are actually running your computer on XP at the time?

Since when has the Disk Management facility in Windows XP ever allowed you to shrink partitions? There isn't an option in there to do that so what are you saying? That is unless you're talking about something else? Maybe you could explain more about what you're talking about to me because I do not understand what you mean...
 
TeaganP said:
I said 2 TB stripe and 2 TB mirror
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That's not how RAID10 works. You have, in effect, two independent mirror sets which are then striped. However given that you have no control over them or access to them it's better to ignore that completely and just think of it as a 2Tb volume.

TeaganP said:
Why not use Paragon Partition Manager instead of doing it in Windows XP?
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It just seems like a lot of fuss when XP can do all you need natively and seamlessly in the installer.
 
Are you sure you guys know what you're talking about here?

Fair enough you have pointed out a few things but seriously you are just going round in circles with all this like as if you aren't reading my posts on this thread. Are you actually reading what I'm saying or not?

I thought I had established a few things with you like I know all about the difference between the stripe and the mirror. Do you think I haven't already searched for things on RAID around the internet before?

Well as far as I see if then, my solution is to YES use Paragon and not take the advise of trying to do something in Windows XP that Windows XP doesn't allow you to do anyway lol
 
Err lol, granted I don't post on here much, and I do not know much about most of the posters on here, but what I do know is that as far as all things storage is concerned, especially RAID, rpstewart pretty much knows all you will ever need to know. Listen to the bloke.
 
Sounds to me like rpstewart has just spent a whole 30 seconds worth of time on this thread TBH. I wanted to talk about this but all I have gotten back is quick fire answers to questions that I said and weren't read properly. I just said that I already knew about that before but he's trying to go around in circles on something and I have no idea why? Does this sound like somebody who knows what they're talking about because it doesn't to me...

Read back the whole thread, read what I put and then read the replies. Maybe if they had read it properly they could have given me a more descriptive answer so I guess you could say no I'm not happy :mad:
 
You do not need to shrink the XP volume as you will create it the size you want from the start using the XP installer. You will then install XP and use disk management to format the remaining space in to a partition for storage.

I.e.

You have 2000GB.

You use the XP installer to create a 100GB partition and install XP.

You boot and use disk management to format the remaining 1900GB in to a storage drive.

No third party software required!
 
Yes but that is not what I want to do....

I want to create a much larger partition than just 100 GBs for installing Windows XP on. Yes that is one way of doing it but you're missing the point here. You can't create say 4 partitions that way, you can only create 2 partitions in total using that method. It might be ok to say install XP first and choose what size to use as you start the installation, you don't have a be a brain box to know that.

If you make a partition that is about 500 GBs only and leave the other 1500 GBs unallocated then yes you can once XP is installed go into Disk Management and choose to create a NTFS in the unallocated space that is of 1500 GBs in size...

Ok so far so good now, you are listening to me.

But...

You can't do anything else once you have your 500 GB and 1500 GB partitions like make any more because Windows XP Disk Management facility doesn't allow you to shrink down the size of a partition like Paragon does..

Which...

Is why I'm saying you should use Paragon so you can make more partitions like 4 say at 500 GBs each. What you have all said really is totally pointless information as far as I can see. My original question was about whether you could partition a RAID once it was created. I didn't think you could but he said you can... so.... that answers the question, if it doesn't matter what size you have in Windows XP then fair enough also.

You simply can't create multi partitions in WinXP alone... obviously... like you're giving advise on something that doesn't make sense.
 
Unless I'm being a complete idiot here, I am 100% sure that you can have more than 2 partitions on one disk in XP. Also, you can reduce the size of partitions using diskpart.

It's irrelevant if the disk that XP can see is a single HDD or a RAID volume, it will treat it in exactly the same way.

Be aware though that you cannot shrink or extend the system volume (where XP is installed) through XP, you'd have to then use 3rd party software but I would strongly advise against doing so as it is possible that the OS will have a fit.
 
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TeaganP said:
You simply can't create multi partitions in WinXP alone... obviously... like you're giving advise on something that doesn't make sense.
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Disk Management within XP will let you create as many partitions as you like within the same restrictions as any other partition manager - a maximum of 4 primary partitions per physical volume, one of which can be an extended partition containing as many logical volumes as you like.
 
rpstewart said:
Disk Management within XP will let you create as many partitions as you like within the same restrictions as any other partition manager
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Errm no dude, you can't! That is totally stupid, there is no such thing. Why on earth do you think people use Partition Manager software first before they install multiboot installations between Linux and Windows? Windows XP DOESN'T allow you to create partitions and then shrink them to allow for further partitions to be created and so on..

You are just talking crap and have engaged in some pointless discussion about something which I embarrassingly know about already.
 
Troll alert anyone?

People use partition manager software when the limits of XP's ability run out or because they don't know or don't understand how to use Disk Management or diskpart properly.

And why are you mentioning multi boot partitions all of a sudden?

If you create a partition within XP, you can shrink the partition should you wish using diskpart as I have already stated. Pop along to Google and have a search, or in case you're too lazy then look at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415 or open a command prompt, type diskpart then enter and then type help and then enter.

It might be easier if you state exactly what it is what you are trying to achieve without excessive amount of detail to save confusing matters.
 
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What a waste of time Diskpart is...

Paragon is much more straight forward to using that crappy command prompt program. Really... whoopie woo, your whole arguement is based on what YOU like to use and you seem to think that there's only one way to do things lol

Everybody does things differently in computers. That's just 1 way, me personally I wouldn't bother and stick to Partitioning Management software :p

Really neither of you have offered me very good advice and now you're complaing about the fact I've given too much information on this thread, what a joke!

Maybe go back to practising writing on forum threads pal.... maybe one day you might be able to have more intelligent discussions with people and open yourself up more to the world of the internet lol

I refuse to comment any further on this thread due to the fact that people don't know how to be more mature on a topic like this :D

If I had the ability to then I would close this thread at this point so to not allow you to embarrass yourselves any further in talking about what YOU use :p
 
TeaganP said:
I refuse to comment any further on this thread due to the fact that people don't know how to be more mature on a topic like this :D

If I had the ability to then I would close this thread at this point so to not allow you to embarrass yourselves any further in talking about what YOU use :p
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This has to be a joke. You're kidding, right?
 
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