Changing from a Win7 RAID1 to a Motherboard RAID1

[Mr Matt]

I have 2x 4GB HDDs setup as a mirrored drive in Windows7. The issue I have is that whenever I copy any data to the drive it takes ages to resync, I estimate that it copies the new data at about 7MB/s however it also has to read the rest of the whole drive during the resync which takes about 12 hours alone. So if I download a new 6GB game onto the RAID then it takes about 2 days to finish the resync.

I have a Asus Z97K motherboard. If I break my RAID and rebuild another one with the Motherboard RAID controller will I still have these same issues? Will the MB RAID controller have to read the entire drive to resync? WIll it also copy data from the primary to the slave drive at such a low data transfer rate as the Win7 RAID?

The drive is only used for data storage, not booting.

 

[drtweak]

1) for RAID 1 it should write the data to BOTH drives at the SAME time. So if it is having to Resync all the time then something is either wrong with the RAID or something is wrong with one of the hard drives

2) As far as moving them. If the motherboards have the same RAID Controller, all you should have to do is set those SATA Ports to RAID mode and plug them in. Then log into the RAID Setup and it should detect the RAID. It may ask to import foregin RAID settings.

Just what ever you do DO NOT INITILIZE THE RAID! That WILL ERASE EVERYTHING on the disk! You may have to back the data up off the hard drives, then start the RAID all over again, and then restore the data.

 

[Mr Matt]

1) for RAID 1 it should write the data to BOTH drives at the SAME time. So if it is having to Resync all the time then something is either wrong with the RAID or something is wrong with one of the hard drives

2) As far as moving them. If the motherboards have the same RAID Controller, all you should have to do is set those SATA Ports to RAID mode and plug them in. Then log into the RAID Setup and it should detect the RAID. It may ask to import foregin RAID settings.

Just what ever you do DO NOT INITILIZE THE RAID! That WILL ERASE EVERYTHING on the disk! You may have to back the data up off the hard drives, then start the RAID all over again, and then restore the data.

I've googled Win7 RAIDs several times and everyone is always talking about the drives resyncing all of the time so it is definitely a "feature" and I don't think that there is anything wrong with my setup. I started with 2 new HDDs which were both formatted before being setup as the RAID and then the data copied to them, it then took ages to resync the drives when I had finished copying to the drive.

Hopefully, from what you've said, the motherboard controlled RAIDs are not always resycing in this way so I think I will go this route anyways but I will probably copy everything to an external drive, format and re-initialise the new RAID just to be sure.

Thanks.

 

[drtweak]

Well from my experience with Intel RAID and any other RAID it shouldn't be resyncing all the time. That is only if a hard drive drops out of the RAID (maybe powers off etc) or if there is an issue with the RAID. I have a client with quite a few Dells with RAID 1 using Intel RAID. Only time that ever happens is if i power up with one of the drive unplugged so there is something going on there.

But if you have everything backed up best thing is to just start from scratch.

Also what brand drives are you using by the way? Just hope they are not Western Digital Green's. Those aren't meant for any kind of RAID period.

 

[drtweak]

Also no need to format when you use disk as a RAID It will erase all partitions to begin with. Also if you do a Full initalize it will erase the disk for you. The same as a full format. A quick initalize is the same as a quick format.

 

[Mr Matt]

Yep, Western Digital Greens.

The WD site claims that they are OK to use in RAID1:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/996/session/L2F2LzEvdGltZS8xNDI1MzYxMTMzL3NpZC81Z29ZOW1nbQ%3D%3D

 

[drtweak]

Yea still I've heard of a lot of bad issues when using the Greens. Because they user variable RPM and they can shut down when not in use to save power that can cause them to drop out of RAID and then BAM a RAID Rebuild starts.

If you keep having the same issue on the new motherboard it is because they are Greens. Get some Blues, Black or ever better the Reds which are designed for RAID.

 

[Mr Matt]

I'll see how they perform when being setup by the MB RAID controller. It may be the cause of all the resyncing but I I think it's because the WIn7 RAID copies the data to the primary drive first and then copies from the primary drive to the secondary drive afterwards.

If I get the same issue when using the MB then I will just break the RAID and manually back up from one to the other every week.

Thanks for the info.

 

[drtweak]

It write to both drive as the same time regardless if it is a Hardware RAID or a Software. That is how RAID 1 works. Writes at the same time and reads at the same time.