Can you install software raid 0 for c:?

[billybowden]

I want to set up a raid 0 during the install for my c partition on Win 7 can this be done?

If not what I will do is install on a parition on one drive and then after I have installed set up some stripped partition and hack the registery and change the locations of the Windows folder to be on the stripped partitions after copying them of course. This is just not a very nice way of doing it.


My mobo doesn't support hardware raid so that is why I am trying to implement software raid and I have a second hardrive.

 

[gregrocker]

Windows 7 doesn't much care for RAID, which is dated technology now that drive imaging is built in.

If you lose one HD, you lose everything. Better to install to one HD and back up image/files to the other.

 

[billybowden]

Performance

I am wanting to do it for performance not redundancy.

 

[Brink]

Hello Billy,

Since it's a OS drive, you will not want to do a software RAID (dynamic partition) with it. You will not be able to start up Windows 7 afterwards if you do.

You will need to use hardware RAID instead by either using a motherboard that supports it, or installing a RAID controller card to use.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[gregrocker]

I am wanting to do it for performance not redundancy.

What kind of performance gains have you seen with RAID before?

 

[billybowden]

Thanks Brink so it sounds like you are saying that if your motherboard does not support hardware raid then you can use a dedicated raid controller and this will work, would you expect to configure the raid in the bios after installing the device?

 

[Brink]

The RAID controller will have it's own setup key combination that you would press to enter it's setup during boot instead of through BIOS, but from there you can setup RAID for the drives to install Windows 7 on. If your motherboad has a spare one, I would recommend a PCI-E RAID controller instead of PCI one for better bandwidth.

 

[billybowden]

No I don't have a spare pci-e slot on my motherboard.
After reading What is PCI Express? A Layman's Guide to High Speed PCI-E Technology-Best Computer Online Store Houston Buy Discount Prices Texas-Directron.com I am thinking it may be a waste of time as the sata speed is significantly higher than the pci speed. Also I would probably be a waste of time buying a pci card as I will probably upgrade my motherboard some time when i'm not stingy and then I will have to buy a pci-e card to get sick performance.

Does it work like this, if you had a pci-e x 16 you could put a pci-e x8 device in it at it would just run at the slower speed as there physically the same slot right?

One would have to wonder why they make sata pci raid cards.

Would a Solid State Drive be a good idea for C:

 

[billybowden]

Actually I have been lying I just realized I do have a pci-e 1x

 

[gregrocker]

Billy, may I ask what performance gains you have experienced before by using RAID array with Win7?

We see so many problems with RAID in WIn7 installs that it would be nice to know the benefits as well, since you are wililng to go to so much trouble to get it.

 

[Brink]

Billy,

I must agree with Greg. Unless you have some sort of need for RAID, you could get even better performance using just a good single SSD drive instead to install Windows 7 on if you have a SATA port on your motherboard and not just the old IDE ones. If you decide on a SSD, then be sure to read up on them to make sure it's a newer generation SSD and not a older and slower generation.

I'm currently running RAID 0 with 2x750GB SATA HDD drives, and the OCZ Vertex 2 50GB SSD I'm installing soon will blow the RAID out of the water in speed and performance.

 

[SIW2]

LOL , Billy may want to RAID 2 SSD's

 

[billybowden]

Well I have always thought that there were significant performance gains through the use of raid 0 at least from a theoretical point of view. I have read that SSD aren't really any performance benefit would you agree? So are you saying a raid 0 of say four sata 2 drives connected to a pci-e x32 would not be significantly faster?

It seems that a raid 0 will only be worth it if you are doing large file operations according to the site I have listed.

I expected that the drives would work less and thus faster application launching installing and smoother running performance. To be perfectly honest I have to say that my machine is running fast and as it seems evident that there is not an outrageous performance boot I am probably just wasting money and time going to the raid path.

You would have to say that launching an application stored on drive 1 that reads data from drive2 would have to be faster surely.

I might add another drive though as a dedicated backup and keep using my current drives as a concoction of both OS and my data storage.

RAID 0: Hype or blessing? | RAID 0: Hype or blessing? | Tweakers.net

What about this one guys

Intel X25-M 80GB SSD Solid State Drive New & Retail Box - eBay Hard Drives, Drives, Components, Computers. (end time 03-Jun-10 16:04:53 AEST)

This is a review of it
Review: Intel X25-M 80GB SSD — PaulStamatiou.com

 

[Brink]

Billy,

Having HHDs connected through a PCI-E x32 would indeed be fast, but still not as fast as a SSD connected to it. A SSD would be just as fast connected to a SATA port since neither drives could reach the full bandwith of SATA II or the new SATA III yet though. It's up to you though on what you would like and what fits your needs though.

You could get the Intel drive cheaper here:
Newegg.com - Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2MH080G2R5 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

However, if you do not need a lot of space, you could get the 50GB OCZ drive below for a bit cheaper. Plus, it is much faster and supports TRIM in RAID when connected to a Intel SATA port with the latest Intel RAID 9.6.0.1014 driver version installed.

Newegg.com - OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTX50G 2.5" 50GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Hope this helps some.

 

[gregrocker]

Brink, maybe I should PM you, but since it's on-topic I have a RAID issue that came up on a clean reinstall of Vista I did for a friend in Florida: When I show up I discover it is a 360x2 RAID array on this Dell desktop with less than 100gb install.

I was under time pressure so didn't want to research un-RAIDING it, even though his external was full and it would have been nice to have the second HD for his image and other needed backups.

The reinstall went great and he is still raving about how fast reinstalled Vista is running. I mumbled a little about how he might want to consider later un-RAIDING to use the second HD for storage, especially because losing one HD in a RAID array can lose his system.

He asked me later if the fast performance is owing any to the RAID and I didn't know how to answer. What do you think?

Thanks!

 

[Brink]

Hello Greg,

Having HDDs in a RAID 0 would be faster than a single HDD, but not as fast as a SSD (new generations) to a point. Plus with RAID, you do have that chance of losing data if using a RAID 0 instead of mirroring the RAID.

It really depends on the sequential and random (mostly) read and write speads of the drives and what their bandwidth limit is. Almost always a SSD will be faster. If you wanted to RAID a SSD, then it will need to be a newer SSD like the ones above connected to a Intel SATA port with the latest Intel RAID drivers as described above with Windows 7 to have TRIM support while using RAID.

The best way to tell is to run a HDD benchmarking program like CrystalDiskMark on the drives in RAID and not to see the difference.

 

[billybowden]

It would be nice if they made 3.5" versions so you don't have to buy conversion cages

 

[Brink]

Some like the OCZ one above come with a 2.5 to 3.5 bracket that you can use to mount it in a 3.5 slot.

 

[billybowden]

I ended up getting:
OCZ Vertex 64GB SSD 2.5" Solid State Drive RAID Support - eBay Hard Drives, Drives, Components, Computers. (end time 19-Jun-10 20:50:28 AEST)
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemVersion&item=380217322159&view=all&tid=175858550025

 

[pparks1]

Good choice Billy...going with the SSD.

Everybody focuses so much on the throughput of the drives when they are RAIDed together when they talk about performance and they compare that to the throughput speeds of the SSD. However, one of the best features of the SSD is it's incredibly low access time. This is where these drives really shine and provide their performance. A RAID of mechanical SATA drives simply cannot match this.