Win7 & Raid 0

[NigyRob]

Hi
I'm about to set up a RAID 0 configuration (2 x 1TB HDD's) with Windows 7 installed and have a question -

1. I've read somewhere you can set up various partitions and use one of them for page filing. Am I able to do this with a RAID 0 set up?

Cheers
Nige

 

[Golden]

Hi,

I think you can. Howver, before you proceed down the RAID route, do yourself a favour and visit some of the many threads here concerning installtion of Windows 7 and RAID arrays. Generally, it has been a very unhappy experience. Use the SEARCH fucntion on the forums to check them out.

I do not believe you will gain significant benefit out of installing the OS to the RAID. It depends exactly your reasons for wanting to use the RAID option in the first place. Don't forget that RAID0 has no redundancy : one disk fails, you need to rebuild everything.

Regards,
Golden

 

[NigyRob]

Hi Golden
Thanks for the advice but you know how it is when you get an idea in your head and just want to do it for the hell of it.

I'm not too concerned about data loss as I will be uploading everything I want to save to my NAS.
I really just wanted to give it a go so I can say i did it and it worked!

Not sure how I'm going to get the page filing in the separate partition
though....but thats another project!!

Thanks for the reply
Cheers
Nige

 

[WindowsStar]

@NigyRob

If this is just RAID 0 for fun or testing or just to see if it can be done. Then go for it and let us know your results.

To answer your question RAID 0 is just making 1 big drive out of 2. So all you need to do is setup the RAID 0 in your motherboard BIOS or in your SATA card. If you don't have RAID on the MB or an add-on card then you will not be able to Install Windows 7 and use RAID 0 for the OS boot. You would need to install on a single drive and then have 2 other drives to make the RAID 0 from within the OS.

 

[Golden]

Hi,

As a data drive RAID0 is extremely fast (see my result below). As an OS hosting drive, I think the benefit is negligible since Windows 7 is 90+% read. Follow WindowsStar advice to setup the RAID0 and let us know what performance you get. Again the note of caution : if one drive fails, the entire RAID fails and you will need to setup from scratch.

Good luck,
Golden