Setting up Win7 on Raid 0

bobkn · 22 Jan 2010

scope said:

I am going to be running some video/audio compression software for live feeds from a few HD camcorders I have setup for a biology project. It will at specified intervals, upload those clips to my project page. So, speed is essential and that's why I want to go with RAID0.

Also, to clarify my OP, I have 4 drives right now.

1. 80g 7200rpm: has win xp
2. 1TB 5400rpm: has win7 on one partition and the other partition is used primarily for storage.
3. and 4. Brand new unpartitioned 300gb velociraptors: this is where I would like to have win7 installed along with the softwares for video processing.

I know my motherboard supports RAIDs. However, I want to know if win7 disk comes with the software to create the actual array.

Thanks again for quick replies.

You have at least two ways of producing a RAID array.

One of them is to use the RAID capabilities of your motherboard's SATA controller. (Incidentally, what is it?) My motherboard (see my system specs) has an Intel ICH10R controller. If the SATA controller is set to RAID in the BIOS settings, a menu becomes available to configure disks as arrays. (Multiple arrays can be created, but there are only 6 SATA ports on the ICH10R, so this is limited.) When a disk is added to the array, all of the data on the disk are lost. (I believe that no special preparation of the disk is required, as it's always wiped, in effect.)

If you install Win7 on a RAID array, you need to install the RAID drivers during the Windows installation. I don't know whether Win7 includes any RAID drivers, or whether you'll have to supply them on removable media. (XP required such drivers to be on a floppy. Vista improved that by allowing floppy, CD, or a USB flash drive. Win7 is the same as Vista in that regard.)

Win7 permits pure software RAID, which has the advantage of being independent of any controller hardware:

Information regarding Windows 7 software Raid : Alan's World Famous Blog V2

I've never used it. It's unclear to me whether Win7 can be used with software RAID on the OS drive.

You may wish to check whether the Velociraptors are ideal for your purpose. They are 10,000 RPM, and their seek times are good, but for continuous reads and writes, the higher platter densities of the large conventional drives (1-2TB) may give them competitive performance for video capture. (Plus larger capacity.)

Night Hawk · 23 Jan 2010

bobkn said:

Night Hawk said:

Welcome to the Se7en Forums! scope

The first thing to know right from the start is the need for two identical drives(already covered with the two 300gbs) and the need to wipe everything from both drives to start a fresh setup. Note with Raid 0 both drives will act as one cutting the drive space in half!

Huh? You obviously know more about RAID than I do, but this isn't correct.

In RAID 0 (striped), the pair of drives will appear as a single 600GB drive.

Also, the drives may not have to be identical, but the capacity of the pair would equal twice the capacity of the smaller disk.

You can also build a RAID 0 array from more than 2 disks; I don't recall whether an even number is required.

I likely ended up with a Raid 1 configuration when looking at the RC set up. A mirrored array definitely will require identical drives in order to work.

One reference you might be interested in working with video is "How to Extend RAID to Enlarge Its Storage Capability?". Best solution to extend RAID, such as RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5,etc on Windows with the RAID partition software.

Another one is a blog on how good Raid is in Windows 7.

RAID on the Cheap: Windows 7 Software RAID vs. inexpensive “fake RAID”

How good is Windows 7 software RAID? Is it faster or slower than a cheap hardware controller (aka “fake RAID”)?

This past month I’ve realized the simultaneous need to add more hard drive storage and decrease the probability of losing the data stored within. While I fully realize that redundant hard disks are not a substitute for a backup, I do want to use a RAID array to reduce the likelihood that I have to restore that data from a backup. Also, I plan to put data on that disk that I would be annoyed to lose, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world (i.e. music, movies, etc.).

You see the rest of that one at RAID on the Cheap: Windows 7 Software RAID vs. inexpensive “fake RAID” at Kevin’s Blog