Software Raid

rlzzz · 19 May 2007 at 21:43

Hi

Im going to be setting up a software raid 5 using Windows XP but I was just wondering what would happen if the hard drive with the OS on died.

I plan to have a 40gig hd with Windows XP installed and then 6x 200gig drives setup in raid 5. I know that if a 200gig drive dies I can add a new one and restore the data but what if the 40gig drive dies. Can I just add a new small drive install Windows XP on it and my raid array will be there? or will i need to backup the 40gig drive just incase so i can restore it to a new hard drive?

Thanks for any help guys

Snapshot · 20 May 2007 at 06:49

A Ghost (or similar) image of your boot drive is sensible insurance and is the fastest way to get up and running after a system drive failure. If your mobo allows it why not have two 40GB drives in a RAID1 as further insurance?

However, I suspect six drives in a software RAID5 is going to have absolutely dreadful write performance. I tried 4 x 250GB drives using the mobo's RAID controller and soon changed to two large drives in a RAID1.

rlzzz · 20 May 2007 at 12:50

Im not that bothered about performance as it will only be used across the network anyway and is just going to be storage, im only doing it to join all my old 200gig drives into one big storage space. I also have 2x500gig and 1x750gig drives for stuff that I use more often.

Thanks for your help

Phil99 · 20 May 2007 at 13:05

Windows XP software RAID really is dire when it comes to write performance...I can't remember the actual speeds, but IIRC it would have taken pretty much overnight to copy over the same amount of data as my Promise card did in about an hour or so, and the Promise card was only accelerated XOR, not full hardware.

When it comes to recovering the volume it's meant to be super easy though I think, at least that's the impression one of my friends gave when he had to reinstall Windows with a software RAID5 volume.

rpstewart · 20 May 2007 at 15:09

rlzzz said:
Im going to be setting up a software raid 5 using Windows XP

XP doesn't support software RAID5, you need one of the server OSes (W2K Server or W2K3 Server) to do it.

rlzzz · 20 May 2007 at 17:06

I think I read its possible by altering a few files. Also I think ill test out the performance first and decide then if I want to use it as well. As long as its not like 1MB/s it should be fine.