Windows 7 Software vs Hardware RAID Comparison

[FanIn80]

This is interesting... any validity to it?

Simple benchmark comparing the performance of a striped array ( RAID 0 ) through Windows 7, Intel's ICH10R, and Gigabyte's own controller. The test was to simply copy/paste four files that totaled almost 8 gigs.

The main conclusion: Do not use the Gigabyte Raid controller because Intel's controller is far superior. The side conclusion: Software Raid through Windows 7 is a nice alternative, so long as you don't need to boot from it ( cannot boot the OS from its own dynamic volume ).

The setup was a pair of 500GB WD Caviar Blacks on a Gigabyte GA-EP45 with a fresh install of Win7 on a separate drive.

http://buildegg.com/bewp/?p=14


Edit: Wait a minute... does "cannot boot the OS from its own dynamic volume" mean what I think it means? That, if my laptop has two 500GB disks in it, I won't be able to combine them into a single bootable 1TB volume for Windows 7 to use?

[FanIn80]

/bump

I don't want to really make this a big deal... but can someone confirm for me that I'll be able to (software) RAID my two laptop drives together into a single volume and boot Windows 7 from it?

Logic tells me yes, but that weirdly-worded line (see post above) is making me nervous.

[psicodude]

I can't find anything definitive, but my guess would be no. My understanding is that dynamic drives are managed by the operating system itself on a software level. Your BIOS has no clue about the OS at boot time, and wouldn't find a boot-able partition.

I haven't tried it personally though.

[Hack&Lube]

"Because the Windows 7 does not give you a chance to create a disk as dynamic during the install process - you will need to do this afterwards. As such - you will need to install Windows 7 on a single non-raid disc and the convert it to dynamic / add the extra drive after you have installed the OS. I suggest you perform the raid adjustments fairly early after installing Windows 7 to ensure you either get performance (Raid 0) or reliability (Raid 1)."

http://www.alanjlee.com/blog/a-few-n...software-raid/

[FanIn80]

Ok cool. That's the way it was in XP too, it just sounded like maybe they changed it in Win7. Awesome, thanks!

[sclitheroe]

Software RAID is great, and its disappointing that its generally gotten a bad rap compared to hardware RAID. The fact that you can lift a software RAID set from any dead machine, and plug the drives into ANY compatible version of the same operating system and get your data back is an enormous benefit in my opinion, in the home/small business market.

For small spindle counts, the CPU usage on a modern processor is quite low, and most low-end RAID chipsets implement the RAID logic in their driver anyways, so you don't gain much by using low-end RAID hardware.

This is, of course, not necessarily the case when you are using high end enterprise RAID gear with dedicated processors, battery-backed cache, etc, but for desktop users, software RAID is a big win in my opinion.


As always, just remember that RAID-1 is not the same as backing up your data (doesn't protect against file system corruption), and that in any RAID array, adding drives to the array means you are MORE likely to experience a failure than single drive setups (eg. a 2 drive RAID array is twice as likely to experience a drive failure, a 3 drive RAID array is 3 times as likely!)

[FanIn80]

Yeah, I've always found software read to work quite nicely in the past. I've only done it in WinXP and Server 2k3 mind you, but still.

Edit: Well, obviously in Linux too...

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Yeah, I've always found software read to work quite nicely in the past. I've only done it in WinXP and Server 2k3 mind you, but still.

Edit: Well, obviously in Linux too...

Give ZFS a shot on OpenSolaris (or some BSD and/or Linux distros too I think)...very cool stuff.