Software RAID 1 in Vista?

[Philbob]

Hi

My question is pretty simple, does Vista support software RAID 1? I've ordered a pair of Western Digital SE16 500gig drives, and thanks to a massive oversight on my part only just realised my motherboard doesn't support hardware RAID.

Googleing around hasn't really proven much help, only telling me that XP didn't support it, so heres hoping you guys can be a bit more helpful.

Thanks

 

[Deleted member 64478]

XP does support it, you have to create the disk as a dynamic disk from a basic disk. More than likely Vista will support it too.

 

[Philbob]

I received the disks today. They're all installed and running, but I haven't got an option to create a dynamic disk. Any reason that may be?

[edit] ok a bit more hunting around has revealed that dynamic disks only work in Ultimate, not HP. Thats a bit of a kick in the teeth.

 

[Buffalo2102]

You can get a pretty cheap PCI RAID card that will do the job.

 

[rpstewart]

Vista only supports Dynamic Disks (and hence the software RAID options) in the Business or Ultimate editions. If you're running Basic or Home Premium then a hardware solution is your only option if you're desperate to go with RAID1.

Can I ask why RAID1 though? All it buys you is hardware redundancy, it's not a backup.