Software Raid solutions (Windows 7)?

Just wondering is there was a software RAID solution for Windows 7. I have the ultimate editions and I know about the dynamic disk setup but I want to know some other options/monitoring. I don't want to buy a controller. I'm the type if I'm buy hardware I'm doing it right. I've looked at the cheap ones and it's not worth it.

raid windows hardware windows7 harddrives microsoft software

asked Sep 03 '11 at 07:29

sillymansam
366●6●8●18

3 Answers:

oldest newest most voted

You have to have a RAID card to run RAID. You may have a small one built onto your motherboard that you can easily run RAID 1 or 0 off, but if you are looking for raid 5 or 6 you will need to by a dedicated raid card. If you have a built in RAID card you can then just setup the RAID through BIOS.

answered Sep 03 '11 at 09:27

Michael Graham
196●3●3●9

michael plenty of mobo's will run all levels of raid without a daughter card. sillymansam please post what mobo your are using. i have a asus maximus formula and you can see even on it i have more than 1 and 0 for raid.

Storage Devices

PATA 1 x ATA100 2 Dev. Max

SATA 3Gb/s 6

SATA RAID 0/1/5/10

Additional RAID Controller JMicron JMB368 PATA controller

(Sep 03 '11 at 09:43) ChuckysChild

The board I want to raid is a asus p5q se2. It's small for a atx form factor but it had the latest southbridge chipset at the time.

(Sep 03 '11 at 09:56) sillymansam

ok looks like that board has onboard raid.

(Sep 03 '11 at 10:03) ChuckysChild

Chuckys child, yes onboard will run higher raids but running raid 6 etc but if you loose 1 hard drive and the onboard one is trying to re-calculate what was oin that drive, in an array of 6 HD's it's gonna struggle.

(Sep 03 '11 at 10:24) Michael Graham

this set up is clearly not for speed so I don't mine...I've got 5x 1TB drives sitting around to play with... should I look in the bios for the settings?

(Sep 03 '11 at 12:14) sillymansam

check your boards manual. easier and faster to find the info. if you don't have it you should be able to get it online from asus.

(Sep 03 '11 at 13:06) ChuckysChild

showing 5 of 6 show all

um... are thoose 1tb drives all equal specs? if not you cant do raid.

And software raid has virtually no difference in speeds (raid 5/6) with onboard raid. in other words, they both suck.

Get a raid controller if you are doing raid 5 or 6 or anything higher.

also if those hard-drives aren't the same specs than u r stuck to software raid.

answered Sep 04 '11 at 20:50

jaewan
106●1●2

They are the same drives, I've been buying one brand and model of 1TB drives for the past year or so. As long as performance, meaning protection, I don't really care about the speed. This is a unit I have spare parts and would like to try a NAS like system. If I can be convinced cheap raid controllers are better than onboard. I would like to try software first.

(Sep 05 '11 at 06:34) sillymansam

Onboard software RAID via dynamic disk (software RAID through the BIOS produces pretty much the same results) is OK for the low RAID levels. (RAID 0 & 1). The OS can sometimes be a little picky about installing onto software RAID via bios though.

Software RAID relies on your CPU to do the RAID work with some simple circuitry built into the motherboard.

A stand alone RAID card will also save all of your RAID settings in the event that the motherboard breaks, software RAID is tied to the motherboard and is a little iffy.

A decent RAID card would be a far better long term investment if your data is highly important. You will also be able to move the RAID to another machine if the motherboard breaks.

As you say, the cheap RAID controllers are not worth the boards they are printed on and only getting a quality RAID controller will give the best performance.

To clarify on drive size.

They DON'T need to be the same size for RAID 0, but for all other RAID levels they DO need to be the same size as you are essentially creating carbon copies of the data.

answered Sep 05 '11 at 09:26

SignOff
(suspended)

Any suggested price for a mid range card?

(Sep 05 '11 at 09:41) sillymansam

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