Windows RAID Questions

wildest_jjk

wildest_jjk

wildest_jjk

Soldato
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6 Jun 2011
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Hi guys,

I have recently installed Windows 8.1 Professional on a custom server that I built. It is going to be used for things like movie streaming, backups etc.

My plan is to stick a couple of identical hard drives into the system in order to use them for backups. I have just found out about storage spaces which could potentially come in handy for my needs. However I did originally plan on trying Windows software raid. All I need is the data at least resilient in case one of the drives fail. What would be my best option out of the Windows features?

Thanks :)
 
Have a look into stablebit drive pool or drive bender. It's similar to storage spaces but with extra functionality and reportedly fewer issues than storage spaces.

I've used both and would recommend either, though I'm currently using stablebit. Both have free trials.

The main advantage for me over "proper" RAID is being able to add more drives to the pool as and when I need them.
 
I've use Stablebit Drive pool on my media storage/download box for years and not had a problem with it. And a license is only like £15~
 
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Yup another one for Drivepool, much better interface than drivebender in my opinion. If you want resilience, you could always use a parity protection system such as flexraid's t-raid, although that would invole losing the largest disk to parity but would mean backup of all attached drives in the array and the ability to rebuild a single disk failure.
 
Thanks for the responses everyone.

I have to be honest I was really looking at free options as this is the first time I have done this. Would neither of the Windows suggestions be good enough for my needs?
 
DrivePool recommendation here too.

I chose not use to storage spaces because there's zero options to decide how to place files on the array or to choose how many copies of things to keep I believe. I wanted to store three copies of my photos and two copies of my music collection and only one copy of TV shows (I.e., no redundancy). With DrivePool I can tell it on an individual folder basis how many copies to keep, and I can also select which disks to use to store particular folders on. You can of course not select a particular disk for a folder and let it choose itsself but I prefer to try and group files on particular disks.

With storage spaces I believe if the array was to crash for whatever reason it can be a complete nightmare to recover data. With DrivePool it basically creates a hidden "Poolpart" folder on the root of the disks. In there is just a normal folder structure, readable by any PC or Linux recovery disk, without the need for the DrivePool software to be installed.

E.g., I have a P drive for DrivePool and in it put a file: p:\Music\Artist\Album\Track.mp3. If I pulled this disk and put it in another PC I'd find it in X:\PoolPart.d5832efc-aca0-407c-8232-33cdaab03d9b\Music\Artist\Album\Track.mp3.

For £15 it's truely worth it :).
 
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As above, there really is no option other than DrivePool or DriveBender.

I use DrivePool, and have done for about 2 years - it's absolutely fantastic. As above, being able to specify down to an individual folder level how many copies of everything you want, and the ability to use different size drives, is fantastic, as I can't justify buying multiple drives of a single size, at a single time.
 
http://snapraid.sourceforge.net/

snap raid. great free raid software. supports multiple parity disks. doesnt change the underlying file system and great for media files. unlike other raid solutions the parity only gets updated when the program is run.
This means it isnt always using your cpu/memory and allows you to easily restore files deleted since the parity was last updated
i have a scheduled task that updates the parity once a week.
if you need drive pooling u can combine this with windows built in junction points to create a single share.

only thing its not good for is for files that change very often as your protection is only up to the last time the program is run. Great for a media server though.
 
Just had a similar question myself, albeit on a rig I can install anything on (not Windows dependent) and I'm going with XPenology. Storage Spaces is flaky at best....
 
I looked at various options for my storage to join drives and provide parity to some of the data. Windows Home Server, various Linux distros, file structure options, windows apps, junction points and various other bits and pieces.

In the end I forked out for Drivepool (got both the pool and security thing, as it was only a couple of quid more) and it's been rock solid ever since. Would highly recommend. Im running on an old S775 PC with Server 2008.
 
Thanks for all of the responses guys it definitely looks like drivepool is a clear winner.

Is Drivepool not overkill for my simple backup needs with two hard drives? When I say overkill I mean both the price and features available. This really is only a basic setup. If it's not then it looks like I will have to go with it!

Thanks everyone :)
 
Thanks again everyone looks like I am going to have to give DrivePool a whirl.

I was thinking about having my backup server running in a VM. How would DrivePool handle things like physical hard drives etc?
 
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