Do I need to format to RAID-0

[icu222much]

I currently am using one hard drive. My second hard drive arrives next week. When trying to do a RAID-0, will I need to format my first drive and re-install everything (including the OS).

I am running Windows 7 Pro, and I am planning to use Windows 7 to control my RAID.

 

[cluberti]

When you create the RAID 0, unless you have a *very* high-end controller, it's going to whack the partition information and data on both drives when it creates the RAID array. You will lose everything on any disks you add to this array, so you should be backing up your data now and planning for a reinstall onto the new array.

 

[icu222much]

In my case, would Windows 7 be my controller? If so, then I am going to loose all the data on all of the drives that are going to be on the array.

 

[Jester45]

You should be able to convert your simple disk to a dynamic disk without data loss. Then create a RAID volume adding both the drives.

You should backup your data just to make sure this does not work or if your drives have problems. Scanning the new drive for errors before creating the RAID is a good idea.

Update: seems like you can only do RAID1 (mirror) without formating

 

[icu222much]

So in-other words, since I am doing RAID0, I will need to format. This makes sense as Windows will need to split everything between the two drives.

So how would I format a drive that already has Windows on it, and then set RAID0 up? Do I somehow go into DOS before I load up Windows and format from there? Then I insert my Windows 7 DvD, install Windows7, and somewhere before the installation process somehow configure RAID0 ?

 

[alphanumeric]

First you set the RAID array up in the BIOS. Then you boot from your windows 7 install disk and do the install just like you normally do. If the RAID array is setup correctly Windows will see it as one drive and you can partition it and formate it during the install. You may have to load the RAID driver so have it handy on a thumbdrive or optical disk.

 

[DeaconFrost]

If I can make a suggestion, to save you a ton of grief...don't bother with RAID0 on a desktop...especially if you are using mechanical drives and are expecting to use the OS to handle the array. RAID0's performance gains in a desktop environment are largely a myth (been proven for years now), and that's with a dedicated, hardware controller. You won't be seeing any performance gains, but you WILL be taking a much larger chance of losing data or having data corruption. Never let software do the job of hardware.

Save yourself a lot of grief, and just use one drive for OS and apps, and the second for your data storage.

 

[soulstealer1984]

If I can make a suggestion, to save you a ton of grief...don't bother with RAID0 on a desktop...especially if you are using mechanical drives and are expecting to use the OS to handle the array. RAID0's performance gains in a desktop environment are largely a myth (been proven for years now), and that's with a dedicated, hardware controller. You won't be seeing any performance gains, but you WILL be taking a much larger chance of losing data or having data corruption. Never let software do the job of hardware.

Save yourself a lot of grief, and just use one drive for OS and apps, and the second for your data storage.

Agreed i used a raid0 with my first build and it ended very badly

 

[ChiefRA]

Agreed i used a raid0 with my first build and it ended very badly

Guys, guys, I have the same question to you as in other posts: What about RAID 01? You get a) the fastest possible performance AND b) protection for your data.

ChiefRA

P.S.: You have to spend more money on the HDD's as you need at least 4 of them, but it's more reliable to buy lety's say 4 x 640Gb SATA III HDD's than to buy 1 x SSD of 64 Gb. A Lot more space for the RAID0 configuration ( ~ 1,2 Tb) instead of keeping a 64 Gb of fast SSD to keep your OS and normal Apps on it.

 

[madtownidiot]

I have two mechanical drives in raid 0, and there really isn't much difference in everyday use, except for the time it takes to install games and large applications or start a virtual machine is about the same or a little quicker than with an SSD. On second thought, yeah there is a big difference.

I don't think there's any way to avoid having to do a clean install, as most hardware changes mean windows won't boot any more if you try to use a system image backup

 

[Dwarf]

Whichever type of array you use, you need to ensure that you have a suitable driver available if the Windows 7 disk doesn't have a suitable driver included. Vista did a good job of including these drivers, and Windows 7 did even better, but there will probably be hardware that isn't recognised without a 3rd party driver. Once that has been loaded, the array will appear as a single disk drive. All commands will be sent, as though to a single drive. The hardware (RAID controller) intercepts these commands and then passes them to the individual drives in the appropriate manner.

 

[madtownidiot]

Whichever type of array you use, you need to ensure that you have a suitable driver available if the Windows 7 disk doesn't have a suitable driver included. Vista did a good job of including these drivers, and Windows 7 did even better, but there will probably be hardware that isn't recognized without a 3rd party driver. Once that has been loaded, the array will appear as a single disk drive. All commands will be sent, as though to a single drive. The hardware (RAID controller) intercepts these commands and then passes them to the individual drives in the appropriate manner.

agreed on that one. I was lucky with my build in that I didn't need to install any 3rd party RAID drivers, but I had an HP envy (laptop) with SSDs in RAID 0 that was far from easy to get working. As long as you don't have a DELL or HP (or some obscure RAID controller) it should work pretty smoothly

 

[alphanumeric]

Agreed i used a raid0 with my first build and it ended very badly

Guys, guys, I have the same question to you as in other posts: What about RAID 01? You get a) the fastest possible performance AND b) protection for your data.

ChiefRA

P.S.: You have to spend more money on the HDD's as you need at least 4 of them, but it's more reliable to buy lety's say 4 x 640Gb SATA III HDD's than to buy 1 x SSD of 64 Gb. A Lot more space for the RAID0 configuration ( ~ 1,2 Tb) instead of keeping a 64 Gb of fast SSD to keep your OS and normal Apps on it.

RAID 1 Mirroring may not be what you think it is as far as "protecting your data" goes. If windows mangles a file it gets mangled on both drives simultaneously. Also if you delete something by accident it gets deleted on both drives at the same time. If the OS gets tanked you can't just unplug one drive and expect to boot from the other like nothing happened. All it does for you is allow the PC to keep running if one of the drives in the set fails mechanically. Backing up your DATA is not the purpose of RAID 1. Sorry if I sound like I'm ranting on about this but I see a lot of miconseptions about RAID, what it does, and what its for. Unfortunatly a lot of the time it's in the form of a "how do I get my DATA back, I thought I was protected" thread.

 

[icu222much]

So from what I gather, RAID 0 with software is not very good because you do not see much performance gain and there is an increased chance of loosing data. I am wondering if there is any other problems specificly with Windows 7. So for example, will Wndows 7 have a difficult time recognizing my drives in RAID, or will it incorrectly write data.

I'm thinking that RAID 0 might not be so great in terms of preformance gain after reading a bunch of forms. But since I have some time now to experiment, I'm thinking I'll try RAID 0 for a bit before switching back.

Deaconfrost: Did you use to WoW with XYZA on AAA?

 

[Jester45]

Windows 7 doesn't have any problems (that I know of) with RAID. Windows + your sata controller might cause problems but thats rare.

In the image below think of A as a file, each part of the file is numbed A1-A8. RAID0 splits the data to increase the read/write speed but if any part of that file is lost the whole file is lost (i know you can recover parts of the file but that is very expensive/time consuming).

Image from wikipedia.

As other posters have said RAID0 on a desktop is not as helpful as one would think. unless your accessing large files for video editing or something like that. If your wanting to just combine the two drives into a single larger storage space windows allows spanned drives aka JBOD. Which doesn't increase speed but does allow data to be recovered if a drive files.

 

[DeaconFrost]

If windows mangles a file it gets mangled on both drives simultaneously. Also if you delete something by accident it gets deleted on both drives at the same time.

Absolutely! I only ever use RAID1, aka mirroring, if it is for a server that just runs an application or so, where no actual data is stored on the server at all. RAID1 is not a backup method! Glad to see it being posted.

 

[cluberti]

The only RAID0 array on my desktop contains Virtual PC VHDs, for obvious reasons. They're not critical either, so if I lose a disk, oh well.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Guys, guys, I have the same question to you as in other posts: What about RAID 01? You get a) the fastest possible performance AND b) protection for your data.

Well no...that's the problem. You really aren't getting that "fastest" possible performance. That's the myth. RAID, all types, is pretty much pointless in a desktop computing environment. You also don't get protection from your data, as described in other posts.

If you really care about performance, get an SSD, a large storage drive, and then a way of backing up your data offline, like an external drive.

 

[madtownidiot]

You won't get any benefits from software based raid 0, but if it's supported at the hardware level, with two good HDDs in raid 0 you will get definitely get much faster write speeds than with an SSD and probably faster reads too, a lot more storage for the money, plus mechanical hdds don't wear out as fast as an SSD.

 

[DeaconFrost]

You won't get any benefits from software based raid 0, but if it's supported at the hardware level, with two good HDDs in raid 0 you will get definitely get much faster write speeds than with an SSD and probably faster reads too, a lot more storage for the money, plus mechanical hdds don't wear out as fast as an SSD.

You make some valid points, such as the fact mechanical drives wear out faster, but from what I've seen, the SSDs will provide much better performance than a mechanical RAID0 array. You also have to include the fact that a RAID0 array halves the reliability of the drives, because if one fails, you lost the data on both, meaning your probability of failure doubles.

The other point you aren't including is that most benchmarks of RAID0 involve synthetic tests, and not real world tests. Real world speeds and overall performance are FAR lower than what most people thing and expect with RAID0. For example, your seek time often increases with an array. That translates into slower performance for many of Windows' basic operations.

I'm not sure why some people are still clinging to a long-debunked myth, but if you are dealing with mechanical drives in a desktop environment, there's no reason to consider RAID anymore. That myth was shot down time and time again, and once Anandtech released their official tests, it was laid to rest.