ASUS Z97 RAID vs Win 8.1 RAID Performance & Maintenance

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Scottflyer

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Oct 31, 2014
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I bought a new mobo, installed the OS and various Apps. Then I got two drives with the purpose of setting them up as RAID 1 for my libraries and documents.

My system is as follows:

[Motherboard Specification]
Product Model: Z97-PRO
Product S/N: E5M0AJ096412
Place of Purchase: Microcenter
Date of Purchase: 2014/07/07
Motherboard Revision: MSIP-RMM-MSO-Z97-PROWIFIAC
Motherboard BIOS Revision: Z97-PRO-ASUS-1304
ASUS Z97 PRO WiFi
Socket: LGA1150

[Graphics Card Specification]
Graphics Card Vendor: Gigabyte
Graphics Card Model: GTX 970 G1
Graphics Card Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce
Graphics Card Driver: 9.18.13.4448
Driver Version 344.48, released 2014-10-22

[CPU Specification]
CPU Vendor: Intel
CPU Type: i7 4790K
CPU Speed: 4 GHz
CPU: i7 4790K CPU @4.8GHz (after 5-Way Optimization),

[Memory Specification]
Memory Vendor: Crucial
Memory Model: Ballistix Tactical 8GB with XMP
Memory Capacity: 32 GB
Memory: 32GB Ballistix 1.6 MHz RAM,

[HDD Specification]
HDD Vendor: Samsung
HDD Model: 850 Pro
HDD Capacity: 512 GB
OS Drive: Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD,
Added Drives: 2 Seagate 4 TB Barracudas for a single RAID 1 for Libraries & Documents
DVD Drive: LG Blue Ray

[Add-on Card Specification] N/A

[Operating System] Windows 8.1 64bit

[CPU Cooler] Corsair liquid cooler

[PSU] Apevia Warlock 1100W power, plan to replace with a high-end modular PSU

[CASE] Corsair NZXT Phantom 630 Case, full tower

The system went together well. I went to do the BIOS RAID setup and it warned me that it may corrupt the OS drive. Therefore I set up the RAID in Windows 8.1. It seems to work well, but I am worried whether I should re-do this setup in the BIOS or NOT (with the OS disk disconnected to avoid corruption). My questions are:
1. Does this Windows-based setup have a performance deficit?
2. What about pros and cons regarding future failure recovery with drive replacement?
3. Will there be potential compatibility issues if the drives are moved to another system? (recovery from system failure)
3.1 If I move the drives to another computer will they operate either as single drives or together continuing as RAID?
3.2 Will this work in either or both setup methods?
4. It seems that the Windows RAID method is the safest but it may have a performance deficit. Is that true?

Does anyone know the answer to these questions? Please give me the pros and cons if you know them. Thanks very much!
 
Solution
popatim
I didn't say Intel raid would be more compatible if you want that then use a 3rd party software raid that will work on just about anything.
By better aftermarket support I meant aftermarket tools to do things such as run recovery from images of the drives.

random 4k speeds are where its at usually and there isn't a noticeable difference there.
I would think you would be hitting closer to 300mb/s in sequential, you must be controller saturated on the sata300 port or have the drives partially filled, those drives will do 150 peak solo sequentially.
Thanks for posting your results. :)

Cleaning the drives should clear the drive id I would think. I've never actually run into this situation myself. (diskpart clean)
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popatim

popatim

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Theres not difference in performance. Its still software raid not matter which you use so its the cpu doing the work.
Whichever you choose you should readup on how to answer the rest of the questions but really its just a matter of Intel software vs Microsoft software. Intel raids probably have better aftermarket support and there are many people familiar witht he system, whereas windows I find to be just as easy though theres a whole lot less knowledgeable userbase.
 
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Scottflyer

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Oct 31, 2014
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Hi

No, there is certainly a difference in performance. Most all the posts say that the Intel RAID will outperform, however after posting this, I ran the Crystal Disk Mark test on both the Windows and ASUS/Intel configurations. Windows won hands down. Below are the two results FYI. I don't buy the argument that Intel RAID will be more compatible if I need to swap the disks to another system in the future. Windows is now a very stable environment. Look at the results:
[Windows 8.1 RAID 1]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 Shizuku Edition x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 178.801 MB/s
Sequential Write : 162.419 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 52.116 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 83.091 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.594 MB/s [ 145.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.222 MB/s [ 298.3 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 2.396 MB/s [ 585.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.180 MB/s [ 288.1 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [X: 1.3% (50.2/3725.9 GB)] (x5) 2 Seagate 4 TB Barracudas ST4000DM000-1F2168
Date : 2014/11/02 11:56:59
OS : Windows 8.1 Pro [6.3 Build 9600] (x64)
[ASUS (Intel) “Hardware” RAID 1:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 Shizuku Edition x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 151.616 MB/s
Sequential Write : 149.136 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 46.080 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 78.756 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.584 MB/s [ 142.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.177 MB/s [ 287.3 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 2.454 MB/s [ 599.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.189 MB/s [ 290.4 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [X: 0.0% (0.3/3725.9 GB)] (x5) 2 Seagate 4 TB Barracudas ST4000DM000-1F2168
Date : 2014/11/02 19:21:28
OS : Windows 8.1 Pro [6.3 Build 9600] (x64)
 
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Scottflyer

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Oct 31, 2014
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I tried to go back to the windows config, but when I took the drives out of raid in the Intel config app at boot, windows refuses to config one of the drives, saying that its id is in conflict with the other that was part of the pair. I suppose that the only way will be to clear the CMOS and do all the rest of my config again. I say this because even the drive that windows does see performs at the Intel RAID speed not the faster Windows RAID speed so clearly it is still being directed through the Intel code, even though I removed it from the RAID. So much for seamless integration solutions. Does anyone have a better idea?
 
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popatim

popatim

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Dec 2, 2009
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I didn't say Intel raid would be more compatible if you want that then use a 3rd party software raid that will work on just about anything.
By better aftermarket support I meant aftermarket tools to do things such as run recovery from images of the drives.

random 4k speeds are where its at usually and there isn't a noticeable difference there.
I would think you would be hitting closer to 300mb/s in sequential, you must be controller saturated on the sata300 port or have the drives partially filled, those drives will do 150 peak solo sequentially.
Thanks for posting your results. :)

Cleaning the drives should clear the drive id I would think. I've never actually run into this situation myself. (diskpart clean)
 
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