Software Raid 2

[customgt]

Hello,

This is the closest forum i could find on this I think.

Im wanting to learn Raid setups better, Ive never setup my own before, which do u guys prefer software or hardware raid?

Which software raid software do you recommend, something free I hope because I am just testing. This will be on Windows XP and ill do it on Windows SBS 2003.

If I have the main harddrive with the OS running, and plug another harddrive in, I can setup a software raid and have the second harddrive join the raid right? Thanks cant wait to get started on this!

 

[LWComputingMVP]

Software RAID does not perform as well as hardware RAID. In general, you should avoid it when possible. The only software RAID that is a true RAID (not RAID 0, but something that will PROTECT from disk failure) is only available on Windows Server versions, including SBS. It's free... but there is no true software RAID for XP. (RAID 0 is not true RAID because of any of the disks fail, you lose EVERYTHING - and RAID stands for REDUNDANT Array of Inexpensive Disks - there's nothing redundant in a RAID that loses everything when one disk fails).

Hardware RAID is almost always faster, though it can be trickier to manage. RAID 1 (Mirroring) and RAID 5 (n-1 available space, where n is a number 3 or greater - so you have 3x the size of the smallest disk - 1x the size of the smallest disk).

The general recommendation is to setup a server where the C: drive is mirrored (RAID 1) and the data drives are RAID 5. For higher-end servers, RAID 0+1/10 may also be used and some newer RAID cards may use what some people have been calling RAID 6 which is essentially RAID 5, but with two disks worth of party (n-2 available space).

I STRONGLY recommend you play around with this if you're unfamiliar with it. Install it a couple of times to get used to the process - DO NOT do this Initially with a production server...

In general, you can just add a disk to the system and create a RAID (the disk added must be AT LEAST as large as the partition/disk you want to make a RAID for). In general, it's strongly recommended, at least starting out, that you use identical (brand, size, model numbers) disks. TECHNICALLY, you don't have to but it is recommended.

The procedure for adding a disk or setting up a RAID will very from controller to controller (for hardware) and is generally the same under one Windows version to another.

Here's some info on using RAID on Windows Servers:

http://www.techimo.com/articles/index.pl?photo=149

 

[wahnula]

To add to what lwcomputing said...( and all that is spot-on, I apparently am not the only one that thinks RAID 0 should be called AID-0)...one should avoid JBOD like the plague, it may be worse than RAID 0.

I think most folks today prefers hardware RAID. Here's my favorite hardware RAID guide:

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/

Tony

 

[customgt]

thanks ive read alot of that now, man i got a headache now from staring at the monitor.

Ive read a document like that before, but I forget if I do not actually do the stuff. That is a great read tony thanks!