Using WindowsXP to Make RAID 5 Happen

[JohnWeldt]

Using WindowsXP to Make RAID 5 Happen

I did not see the "Join our discussion on this topic" on the article so I will make my own.



Has there been an update on RAID5 using windows software?

What kind of CPU usage are we talking about?

From the looks of things the software RAID 5 is held of the hardware RAID. Does a PCI or a PCI-X card make the difference?

 

[FITCamaro]

You really don't wanna do software RAID. Even for RAID 0 its a bad idea.

Get a controller card.

 

[JohnWeldt]

Why would I not want to use it other then what Toms stated like CPU usage?

I am testing to see it if is any value. If you have any experiences good or bad please let me know.

 

[rushfan]

You really don't wanna do software RAID. Even for RAID 0 its a bad idea.

Get a controller card.

Many controller cards (except the most expensive) aren't fully hardware based and use a good chunk of software to do their work anyway.

Today's CPUs have more than enough power to run RAID without sapping too much power from the rest of the system. You will notice a positive difference with RAID though it isn't always dramatic. Hopefully you make regular backups of your data regardless of what your present storage strategy is. RAID 1 and 5 can protect you against a failed disk but if you delete something accidentally you'll need to go to your backup to restore the data.

If your system is Intel based and supports Matrix RAID (most LGA775 systems should), give it a whirl. I just finished setting my system up with both RAID 0 and RAID 1 using just two SATA drives and it is the most responsive array I have ever used. I installed Windows XP on the RAID 0 volume in about 20 minutes and the system boots to the desktop in about 15 seconds after POST.

 

[FITCamaro]

I mean purely software RAID.

I have a RAID array as well using my onboard controller. But you can choose to set up the array through the hardware by hitting a function key during bootup or through Windows. I set it up through the hardware. I wouldn't recommend setting it up through Windows. Sure it might work but how redundant is it since its based through Windows (Don't get me wrong. I use Windows solely but theres just some things I don't trust to it). Not to mention how slow it was compared to using a hardware chip for it.

For RAID 5 though, there aren't a whole lot of good onboard chips. I plan to set up a RAID 5 in the hopefully near future with 4 500GB drives. I plan to use a PCI controller card.

 

[JohnWeldt]

I built a system just like Tom's review and it seems to work well. My speeds are 3% slower then hardware RAID0. I used a 38GB AVI file transcoded into Real format.

I am totally puzzled, why I am seeing almost identical results going from RAID0 hardware to RAID5 software. Transcoding is dependent on drive speeds 8O

I will pull a few plugs and see what happens but based purely on speed software does not have a disadvantage.

Linux seems to promote the idea for software RAID over hardware as it is more flexible.

 

[rushfan]

I am totally puzzled, why I am seeing almost identical results going from RAID0 hardware to RAID5 software. Transcoding is dependent on drive speeds

This hints at what I was getting at in my earlier post - I believe that even onboard controllers are mostly software controllers. They still depend on the system CPU and RAM to do most of the work unlike dedicated RAID cards (like those found in servers) which have onboard CPUs and memory of their own.

 

[JohnWeldt]

Another odd bit is removing one drive the data was still usable. Rebuilding takes a full day though.

 

[darkstar782]

Tried windows software RAID5 on 4 120gb disks a few months back.

It was constantly 'resyncing' the disk each time the computer booted and being stupidly slow, it would eat the entire CPU (an A64 3500+)

Needless to say I had it set up like that for under a week.

 

[rushfan]

Another odd bit is removing one drive the data was still usable. Rebuilding takes a full day though.

RAID 5 has redundancy built in - that's why you were able to continue to use the array. One drive (in size) is used for parity information, spread out among all of the drives.

RAID 0 - lose a drive and you're SOL.