Windows 7 - Windows 7 and RAID

hacku · 11-05-2009

Alright, so I'm going to be building a multimedia server that is going to contain a total of 6 hard drives for a grand total of 7.5 terabytes of space.

A friend suggested I setup all my media drives (5 @ 7TB's) in a RAID array to avoid losing data if one of them crashes.

Has anyone here attempted a RAID array in Windows 7 yet? If so, have you ran into any problems?

This will be my first attempt of setting up a PC with RAID so any help/pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

lynxpilot · 11-05-2009

If you have 6 hard drives, set up in RAID 5. I'm in RAID 0 for performance only and XP is my backup on an IDE drive (dual boot). My load with Windows 7 was flawless once I figured out what I wanted to do. I had a glitch with 32-bit and 64-bit that was entirely self-induced and once it was resolved, did a clean install on my RAID 0 array. Windows 7 recognized virtually all of the hardware and went to town. Setting up the RAID array is all in the BIOS though, and other than recognition, won't involve Windows 7.

hacku · 11-05-2009

Thanks for the info.

After looking up some info on my motherboard (Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-UD2H), according to the website it only supports SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and JBOD.

Does that mean I won't be able to do a RAID 5 setup?

zigzag3143 · 11-05-2009

Quote: Originally Posted by hacku

Alright, so I'm going to be building a multimedia server that is going to contain a total of 6 hard drives for a grand total of 7.5 terabytes of space.

A friend suggested I setup all my media drives (5 @ 7TB's) in a RAID array to avoid losing data if one of them crashes.

Has anyone here attempted a RAID array in Windows 7 yet? If so, have you ran into any problems?

This will be my first attempt of setting up a PC with RAID so any help/pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Hacku

Hi and welcome
Yes I have run a RAID on win 7. It does give you the ability to saave your data should a drive fail. I am not a fan of RAID in win 7, the drivers, maintenaaance, and overall headache value make it not worth it for me. I maintain a comprehensive backup schedule so I dont run the risk of losing data. In fact you can have a higher survivabily doing back up than with a raid.

Hope this helps

Ken J

hacku · 11-05-2009

Quote: Originally Posted by zigzag3143

Quote: Originally Posted by hacku

Alright, so I'm going to be building a multimedia server that is going to contain a total of 6 hard drives for a grand total of 7.5 terabytes of space.

A friend suggested I setup all my media drives (5 @ 7TB's) in a RAID array to avoid losing data if one of them crashes.

Has anyone here attempted a RAID array in Windows 7 yet? If so, have you ran into any problems?

This will be my first attempt of setting up a PC with RAID so any help/pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Hacku

Hi and welcome
Yes I have run a RAID on win 7. It does give you the ability to saave your data should a drive fail. I am not a fan of RAID in win 7, the drivers, maintenaaance, and overall headache value make it not worth it for me. I maintain a comprehensive backup schedule so I dont run the risk of losing data. In fact you can have a higher survivabily doing back up than with a raid.

Hope this helps

Ken J

Thanks for the tip, but when we're talking about 6TB's worth of movies it's hard to just keep a backup copy unless you have 6TB's worth of free space laying around to back that up... lol

logicearth · 11-05-2009

You won't be able to do RAID 5 unless you get an addon card. You could do RAID 1 but that would divide your HDDs in half.

batmeat · 11-05-2009

Windows 7 recognized my SSD Raid 0 config without a hitch.

Windows 7 - Windows 7 and RAID

Windows 7 and RAID problems?