XP RAID question

[shdowflare]

Hey all,

I recently hacked my XP workstation to support Windows RAID volumes. This is my home PC and I wanted some hardware redundancy. I have three 120GB IDE drives in the system. I loaded Windows XP on a 16GB C: partition on one of the three drives. I plan to create a RAID 5 volume consisting of the remaining 104GB on the first disk, along with the same amount carved out of the other two disks. That would give me a 208GB usable RAID 5 set.

My questions started to come up after thinking about disk failures and how Windows would protect my data. I figured if I lose disks 2 or 3, no big deal since they don't have the OS (system) partition. Windows would just preserve the data and allow me to regenerate the volume after replacing the failed disk.

But what if I lost disk 1? The system partition that holds the OS would be gone. There's no redundancy for that partition. If I lost that disk, how would I be able to recover my data since the OS would be "gone" and all I would have is the remaining two members of the degraded RAID 5 set? Is there a way to import them into another XP system and recover my data?

Or should I go with a different approach? I though maybe I could mirror the OS partition onto the remaining free space of disk 2 or 3. That may work too. But I'm concerned about I/O performance. These are not high-end SCSI disks with dedicated controllers. They're simple IDE drives with basic IDE controllers integrated on the MB. I'm not terribly confident that they can adequately handle a RAID 1 and RAID 5 volume across the same three disks without bogging down my PC.

Anyway, just trying to get some thoughts before I decide on my final strategy.

Thanks in advance for any help.

-B

 

[DCBennett]

Why not start again and create a single RAID 5 with all three disks and keep Windows and Data in the same partition?

I don't think you would notice any performance loss as you are already using part of all the disks for the RAID 5.

Or get a fourth disk and have a System RAID1 on one controller and two disks and a Data RAID2 on the other controller and two disks?

 

[shdowflare]

The XP setup won't let you configure a RAID volume during OS installation. So you have to load the OS into its own partition. Then after you hack the disk management subsystem and enable RAID, you can configure the rest of the drives.

The only issue with creating two RAID1 volumes (one for OS, one for data) is that I'd lose 50% of my disk space going that route. I'm already sacrificing 33% using RAID5 and am trying to preserve as much disk space as possible.

I will probably just try creating a RAID1 volume for the System partition in the unallocated space of disks 2 or 3. Then I'll have my redundancy for both OS and data regardless of which drive fails.

Tganks,
B

 

[cpjust]

Then after you hack the disk management subsystem and enable RAID

I've never setup a RAID before, so I'm wondering: Why do you need to 'hack' the disk management subsystem?

 

[DCBennett]

XP does not suport RAID5 but can be hacked to do so.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/19/using_windowsxp_to_make_raid_5_happen/

 

[snorkel]

A hardware RAID solution is always better than a software RAID solution.