# Setting up RAID



## kevinturcotte (Dec 19, 2006)

How do I set 2 hard drives up for RAID 1 under Windows 7? I have 4 drives. 2 1TB drives that I DON'T want setup as RAID, and 2 1.5 TB drives that I DO want setup as RAID. 1 of the 1TB drives in the main Windows drive.


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

kevinturcotte said:


> How do I set 2 hard drives up for RAID 1 under Windows 7? I have 4 drives. 2 1TB drives that I DON'T want setup as RAID, and 2 1.5 TB drives that I DO want setup as RAID. 1 of the 1TB drives in the main Windows drive.


Raid is a motherboard function, not Windows 7, though Windows 7 will require drivers. The way to do this would be to setup your 2 Raid drives and load Windows 7, then add the additional drives.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Actually you can do software RAID in windows as well Larry. You just need to have Professional or higher.

http://www.alanjlee.com/blog/a-few-notes-on-windows-7-software-raid/

But if you have a board that supports RAID you will need to look at its instructions for how to set it up as they vary.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I wouldn't recommend using Windows SW RAID, only as last resort. Too many issues during recovery.

Best way - HW RAID card or at at least motherboard with RAID support.


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## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

It's easier since you aren't installing the O/S on the raid. You just need to use whatever hardware or software you want to configure the RAID volume, then Windows will simply see that as another disk that can be partitioned, formatted and mounted. I have a RAID 0 on my desktop (Gigabyte on-board hardware RAID) and use it as the system disk. The only challenge was getting the correct Windows 7 compatible driver loaded during the Windows installation process. But that just took a web search and burning the right files to a CD to insert during the install.


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## kevinturcotte (Dec 19, 2006)

Windows (7, Ultimate, 64-bit) is already installed, and there's already data on one of the drives. Is it going to wipe both drives after I turn them into a RAID, or will it just automatically start copying stuff over once Windows starts?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Usually building RAID wipe all data. 

Do Ghost/Acronis/etc your disk's partitions backup, after buid RAID you will restore everything, in SW RAID case you'll need add a driver.


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## Mustang Dave (Oct 13, 2006)

Software RAID works at the Windows Volume level (sort of like partitions) and not at the disk level. You can mirror volumes onto other disks without having to dedicate the entire disk you just have to have enough disk space on the target drive to match the volume size on the source drive.

Your situation Kev depends on how you have volumes setup currently on both the source and target drives what sizes they are and what space you have left.

When you "Add a Mirror" to a source volume the information is simply copied to the target volume and data is not deleted.

Side note to do mirroring you first have to convert the disks from Basic to Dynamic. A simple and quick process however that pretty much disables dual boot capabilities if you have other OSes running on your computer.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

P Smith said:


> I wouldn't recommend using Windows SW RAID, only as last resort. Too many issues during recovery.
> 
> Best way - HW RAID card or at at least motherboard with RAID support.


Software RAID is not as nice or good as hardware RAID, but Windows software RAID is not bad at all really. Just as good as many on board solutions which also many times are software RAID.

You can also do some cool stuff with windows RAID like only mirroring parts of drives as was stated already. You also do not have to worry about drivers and such.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I know that easy MS approach and had *very bad* experience with recovering this Windows "RAID" on servers. I will never use it include desktop/notebook.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Sorry to hear that, you really should just be wary of all software RAID though. In general it is a PITA to recover when the you know what starts to hit the fan.


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## kevinturcotte (Dec 19, 2006)

If/when I set it up through my motherboard, is it going to wipe both drives and start fresh, or copy everything that's on the first drive over to the second?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Usually it will kill all data, but check your manual and call the Gigabyte co.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Most likely it will wipe everything. 

What board do you have?


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## kevinturcotte (Dec 19, 2006)

Grentz said:


> Most likely it will wipe everything.
> 
> What board do you have?


It's an Asus P6X58D Premium http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=wurRaDZ8lo4Ckukj&templete=2


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

What you will have to deal:
_Intel Matrix Storage Technology Support RAID 0,1,5,10_ 
So, you'll be need proper drivers, as to survival data, I would make backup of whole your disk before try the RAID manager.


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## kevinturcotte (Dec 19, 2006)

Also, what happens when I reinstall Windows? I take it that since I did all of this from within the BIOS? reinstalled Windows will automatically see them as a RAID?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Nope, not atumatically; 
make a trial run: 
remove all your hard drives drives, install two HDD from scrap box, boot the PC press Del or special key for invoke RAID config, and try to set that RAID-X what you like, then you'll see all warnings about destroying data, etc. Take your time.


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## funhouse69 (Mar 26, 2007)

I would also suggest you avoid software RAID, sure it works and is possibly better than nothing but I've had a lot of issues with older versions of Windows RAID implementations which almost always resulted in some level of Data Loss. 

That said I've also had issues with hardware RAIDs that come on motherboards. Only when I went to dedicated RAID Controllers have I been able to withstand failed drives without any data loss, quick and easy recovery. 

I know that everyone has different experiences, maybe a RAID 1 (Mirror) set up will be better with on motherboard hardware then RAID 5 but I wouldn't depend on it for my critical data.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

BTW, Intel Matrix storage is not hardware RAID, it is software RAID as well.

With Intel Matrix, if you are RAIDing drives that the OS is not on, you can setup the RAID for the secondary drives after install. Intel Matrix does usually wipe the drives when you make a new RAID array.

If you want to install the OS on the RAID array it is a bit more tricky, but not bad at all. Intel Matrix is extremely common so if you do a little searching there are lots of good guides and documentation on it.


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## zx10guy (Nov 16, 2008)

To add something here. There are actually three types of RAID setups. One which everyone has discussed is OS based software RAID. The other is a fully hardware RAID controller. Now everyone is wondering what the third type is. It's a hardware RAID controller which depends on the CPU to do much of the RAID overhead processing. This is similar to and akin to the Winmodems.

OS based software RAID should be avoided for the reasons listed above. Primarily due to the portability issue. But the other reason why you should avoid OS based software RAID is due to the lack of support for hot swapping drives. Personally for me, if you don't have hot swapping of drives, RAID loses a lot of its appeal.

Going to a embedded motherboard solution is also not that great. Again, you have the issues of portability. If you upgrade motherboards or have to replace one due to a failure, you better hope the new motherboard has the same controller chip as your previous one. RAID controllers tend to lay down data across the disks differently from one another.

So if I were to do this, I would get a card based solution and look for the ability to support a hot swap drive setup. At a minimum, I would want a RAID controller with an audible alarm to alert you when there is an issue you need to look in to immediately.

I built two fileservers on my home network. Both have a full hardware RAID controller and both support hot swap of the drives. The old server is an old Compaq Proliant 3000 server with all the associated Compaq peripherals. The other is a Dell PowerEdge 850 server running an Areca ML1210 RAID controller which supports RAID levels up to RAID 6. The controller also has support for a dedicated serial bus which allows comms to an external drive enclosure to signal which drives have failed, drive activity, etc. Both controllers have dedicated cache memory.










And also don't forget an important ingredient when doing RAID. It does no good to get data redundancy if your disk goes corrupt due to an unexpected power loss. I always use a UPS on any system which has RAID running on it.


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## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

kevinturcotte said:


> Also, what happens when I reinstall Windows? I take it that since I did all of this from within the BIOS? reinstalled Windows will automatically see them as a RAID?


If you are going to use the RAID volume as a secondary disk, then there is no reason to re-install Windows. Just connect the drives to the appropriate controllers, boot into the MB's RAID config utility, and setup the RAID. When you reboot into Windows, you will likely be prompted to install the appropriate drivers. Once that's done, it's just a matter of creating the partition and formatting the volume.


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## funhouse69 (Mar 26, 2007)

I build my own RAID Boxes, I use 3 Ware Controllers and haven't had an issue since switching to them over Intel Controllers.

Here's 2 of the systems I've built recently, the one on the Left (White one) is mine and the other I built for a friend of mine.










Mine currently has 11TB of Disc Space using 1.5 TB Drives, I will be upgrading to the 3TB Drives when they come out later this year (and get a little cheaper). Each of these are RAID 5 but will be upgraded to RAID 6 in the near future now what we are over 10TB.

One thing worth mentioning is if you want to Mirror Drives in Windows I don't believe you will loose any data on your primary drive, you will only loose the data on the secondary drive. I personally wouldn't use Windows for anything but mirroring but remember that anything that you do via software is going to cost performance wise, how much will depend on all of the usual factors. A hardware controller will actually improve performance since all of the work is offloaded and you are gaining the performance of multiple drives.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

zx10guy said:


> ...
> I built two fileservers on my home network. Both have a full hardware RAID controller and both support hot swap of the drives. The old server is an old Compaq Proliant 3000 server with all the associated Compaq peripherals. The other is a Dell PowerEdge 850 server running an Areca ML1210 RAID controller which supports RAID levels up to RAID 6. The controller also has support for a dedicated serial bus which allows comms to an external drive enclosure to signal which drives have failed, drive activity, etc. Both controllers have dedicated cache memory.
> 
> 
> ...


Blast from the past ! 
I remember those in my server room, used it for Oracle development ... More then 10 years ago. Used also DL models and switched to rackmont Dell 6000 PE with Dell storage/4 ch RAID controller PERCs.


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## 4HiMarks (Jan 21, 2004)

Let's back up a minute here. Why do you think you *need* RAID in the first place? If you're not running your OS on a RAID volume, and hot-swapping isn't supported either, then you are still running the risk of downtime if and when any hdd crashes, especially the one with the OS. If you just want to protect your data, you might be able to accomplish what you need with an external hard drive, or even some NAS, and some good real-time backup software (NOT the crap that comes with the external drives).

Unless you are running commercial servers where you (or your company) are losing money when they are down, then RAID is probably overkill.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

and, it is about time to add this, RAID is NOT a backup


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## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

Grentz said:


> and, it is about time to add this, RAID is NOT a backup


I use a RAID 0 strictly for performance. It is in no way a backup because it has no redundancy. Other RAID configurations offer some level of redundancy so one could argue that they are a sort of backup in that they protect data from the risk of disk failure. Of course they do nothing to protect from any other risk factors, so you are right - RAID is not a "backup", but it is better protection from a failed disk than other options.


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## zx10guy (Nov 16, 2008)

funhouse69 said:


> I build my own RAID Boxes, I use 3 Ware Controllers and haven't had an issue since switching to them over Intel Controllers.
> 
> Here's 2 of the systems I've built recently, the one on the Left (White one) is mine and the other I built for a friend of mine.
> 
> ...


As a side note, I would seriously consider running RAID 6 with the size of your drives and your overall storage volume. The issue you're going to run into with progressively larger storage volumes (LUNs) and larger drives is the rebuild time when a drive goes south. With SAN storage, there's the ability to create meta-LUNs or other variants which allows smaller LUNs which aid in faster rebuild times but the ability to group smaller LUNs into a larger overall LUN for greater storage.


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

Grentz said:


> Sorry to hear that, you really should just be wary of all software RAID though. In general it is a PITA to recover when the you know what starts to hit the fan.


Disagree there ....

I'd trust my data to Veritas Volume Manager, implicitly.


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## zx10guy (Nov 16, 2008)

P Smith said:


> Blast from the past !
> I remember those in my server room, used it for Oracle development ... More then 10 years ago. Used also DL models and switched to rackmont Dell 6000 PE with Dell storage/4 ch RAID controller PERCs.


Yeah. Definitely a blast from the past. I've been nursing the SCSI drives along until I can finish moving all my files from the Compaq over to the Dell. After I migrate the data over, I'll play with converting the Compaq server into a VTL.

I also worked with the Dell 6000s and the old PERC controllers. The PERC controllers of that era in my opinion were pieces of turd. We had tons of failures of those controllers.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

dmurphy said:


> Disagree there ....
> 
> I'd trust my data to Veritas Volume Manager, implicitly.


That is why I said wary and in general. There are always exceptions.

I have used the Windows built in Software RAID even with success many times. Just depends on the situation.

and after years of fighting with Backup Exec it would take some time before I ever warmed up to another Veritas product again :lol:


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## kevinturcotte (Dec 19, 2006)

I have a couple layers of backup protection. Everything *IMPORTANT* is already on all 4 hard drives. I also have it on DVD. I also use Mozy Backup service. Also looking at getting a 64 GB thumb drive once they release one with a USB 3.0 interface.
Learned my lesson after I had a hard drive crash back in 2004, and I lost everything. Same thing happened again about 6 months later. Never again!


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

Grentz said:


> and after years of fighting with Backup Exec it would take some time before I ever warmed up to another Veritas product again :lol:


LOL - you need HP Data Protector ..  Fast. Easy. Reliable.

Seriously though - the VxFS/VxVM products are (or, were before the Symantec purchase!) among some of the best software I've ever used, anywhere. It's good stuff. Solid.

Been in some *really* sticky situations that only through the grace of Veritas itself have I survived.

(Try having an Oracle database imported -- and running -- on two separate systems at the same time. And no, not in a RAC cluster! I was able to recover from that trainwreck without going to tape because of VxFS ...)


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