How is the windows 2000/XP raid utility?

I

imzjustplayin

[H]ard|Gawd
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I've been told that software raid is significantly slower than hardware raid, what do they mean? Lets say I didn't really care about using CPU cycles because I had plenty to spare (dual processor or what ever), would it be slower than hardware raid?
  • How are the motherboard raid solutions, are they much better?
  • What are some decent PATA raid cards?
  • How much can they be had for?
  • Does windows support the ability of combining Raid 5 with JBOD?
  • Does it have the ability to combine JBOD with anything?
  • Are there ANY raid solutions that support JBOD+a raid solution?
  • Can you have multiple Raid cards in a system and then raid the drives together between the two cards??
 
I've been told that software raid is significantly slower than hardware raid, what do they mean? It's not unless you are using hardware RAID with a caching controller built-in.

Lets say I didn't really care about using CPU cycles because I had plenty to spare (dual processor or what ever), would it be slower than hardware raid? No, unless you are using a caching RAID controller, as mentioned previously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks#Hardware_vs._software

  • How are the motherboard raid solutions, are they much better?
see above

JOBD is called "spanned volumes" by MS. The other answers are easily Google-able, easily avabile on Pricewatch, easily available in the Windows help files, or at least somewhat dependent on whether you go with a hardware or software solution.
 
Hi there,

are you still wanting some help with this? I've used RAID for a while now both at work and at home. I will safely say stay well away from software RAID. Whilst it may work for some people i have nothing but bad things to say about it.

If you want some info on Hardward RAID reply to this and i'll let you know some more details. Or if you have already found help elsewhere then no problem
 
Why would windows raid be significantly worse than hardware raid? One issue I see with hardware raid is that if the controller fails, I'm outta luck..

And how bad is it to have two drives on one channel when in raid? (2 drives per ribbon) Will I notice a performance improvement despite being on the same channel with Raid 0 or 5? (I'd assume so)
 
There is a much higher chance of the software RAID controller failing than a hardware chip failing. Hardward RAID is very reliable and I've never seen one fail in 7 years of working with them.

If its a performance boost your wanting you want to use level 0 (striping)

For a full description have a look at http://www.prepressure.com/techno/raid.htm

as for two drives on the same channel, this would slow your setup down. All information would need to go to the controller chip regardless of setup, therefore your going to have more data going back and forth through the one cable. keep your drives on seperate cables if possible. And even better, upgrade to SATA drives for an even better performance boost
 
the_cheeky_badger said:
There is a much higher chance of the software RAID controller failing than a hardware chip failing. Hardward RAID is very reliable and I've never seen one fail in 7 years of working with them.

If its a performance boost your wanting you want to use level 0 (striping)

For a full description have a look at http://www.prepressure.com/techno/raid.htm

as for two drives on the same channel, this would slow your setup down. All information would need to go to the controller chip regardless of setup, therefore your going to have more data going back and forth through the one cable. keep your drives on seperate cables if possible. And even better, upgrade to SATA drives for an even better performance boost
Click to expand...
Um, wtf? You just said that if I wanted better performance, I'd go with SATA; do you know what you're talking about?

Tell me, what is so damned special about SATA that would require me to upgrade to it? (This should be interesting)
 
+1 for cheeky's comments.

if you're going for RAID on a windows box, definitely stay away from software RAID. the odds of a software installation becoming corrupted (ie: windows, or at least it's software RAID files) is much MUCH higher than the odds of a hardware controller card going bad.

i highly recommend the controllers from "promise" if you'll be sticking with a windows operating system.

having the PATA hard drives (ie: ribbon data cables) on separate channels is much more performant than putting both on the same IDE cable.

RAID-0 (striping) is an excellent choice if you're not concerned about fault tolerance. it's not a good option for important files, though (basically if one hard drive fails, then you've basically lost all files on the array).

if you're looking for even more performance, then going for SATA drives and a SATA RAID card would be even better. price per hard drive is negligible, and it's only a slightly higher cost for the controller card.

SATA speeds currently out-perform PATA in data throughput. others can probably elaborate on this, but for now just accept that SATA is faster than PATA.

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and finally imzjustplayin ...
Um, wtf? You just said that if I wanted better performance, I'd go with SATA; do you know what you're talking about?

Tell me, what is so damned special about SATA that would require me to upgrade to it? (This should be interesting)
Click to expand...
you've got a lot of people in the forums that are willing to extend a hand and help one another. you apparently started this thread because you didn't know the "best practices" or "tried and true" concepts. and that's fine, it's what this forum is for.

but don't instantly slap other posters in the face with comments like "do you know what you're talking about" when the person has clearly spent his/her time answering your questions and even providing links to sites providing further information. you can be more mature than that.
 
Thanks for the backup, you basically summed up very nicely there PTNL.

And yes, I do know what im talking about as I currently support our RAID systems at my workplace, and i use them at home.

Further information from what PTNL said, SATA now comes in 2 types, SATA and SATA2. Basically the difference is speed. for further information take a look:

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=16014

If your computer currently does not have any SATA ports, a controller card is very cheap and can be purchased in the form of a PCI card you can simply install. However the most difficult / frustrating part will be installing your OS to it. You will need a floppy drive to install the windows boot drivers when installing the OS (the first part where you format your disks) so dont forget to order one or borrow one when you install you OS.

I have used controllers from Nvidia, Promise, Intel and Silicon. I would recomend all of them.

If you want further help or recomendations then fire away.
 
imzjustplayin said:
I've been told that software raid is significantly slower than hardware raid, what do they mean? Lets say I didn't really care about using CPU cycles because I had plenty to spare (dual processor or what ever), would it be slower than hardware raid?
  • How are the motherboard raid solutions, are they much better?
Click to expand...
depends on who made them and what RAID you want to run. Note that WinXP doesn't support RAID 1 or 5, leaving you only with R-0 and spanned disks (JBOD).
  • What are some decent PATA raid cards?
Click to expand...
IIRC, 3ware was the top dog when it came to PATA raid performance. You should be able to get some decent deals on used cards.
  • How much can they be had for?
Click to expand...
entry level add-in cards (which are essentially a software solution) are around $10-$20. As with most things, there is barely an upper limit... I would not spend "much" on a legacy solution anymore. I recall some 3ware cards costing around $400+
  • Does windows support the ability of combining Raid 5 with JBOD?
Click to expand...

Win2K3 may. WinXP certainly does not, since it does not support software RAID-5. Oh, before you come along quoting some article from Toms/ the C't or similar, be aware that the suggested modifications are likely in violation of the EULA and certainly not supported by MS.

  • Are there ANY raid solutions that support JBOD+a raid solution?
Click to expand...
Most nested "RAID" levels do not use JBOD as the underlying. I have not heard to anyone doing this with any raid controller.

  • Can you have multiple Raid cards in a system and then raid the drives together between the two cards??
Click to expand...
Most higher end raid controllers allow for nested raid levels, so you wouldn't need more than one card, unless you ran out of ports. You could also have the hardware controller take care of the bottom raid level and then software raid the top level.
 
the_cheeky_badger said:
Thanks for the backup, you basically summed up very nicely there PTNL.

And yes, I do know what im talking about as I currently support our RAID systems at my workplace, and i use them at home.

Further information from what PTNL said, SATA now comes in 2 types, SATA and SATA2. Basically the difference is speed. for further information take a look:

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=16014

If your computer currently does not have any SATA ports, a controller card is very cheap and can be purchased in the form of a PCI card you can simply install. However the most difficult / frustrating part will be installing your OS to it. You will need a floppy drive to install the windows boot drivers when installing the OS (the first part where you format your disks) so dont forget to order one or borrow one when you install you OS.

I have used controllers from Nvidia, Promise, Intel and Silicon. I would recomend all of them.

If you want further help or recomendations then fire away.
Click to expand...


Sorry but SATA isn't faster than PATA, SATA II or not. Yes the drive interface is faster at 150MB/s or 300MB/s (SATA and SATA II respectively) but most drives if not all drives can't utilize the bandwidth provided by the bus' speed. PATA/SATA drives for burst rates peak at 87MB/s (can't find the reference) but I have never seen it go past that. Now, if you're talking about a RAID configuration, you can go above that. Having said that, because each drive in the SATA configuration get's its own channel, you could never max out the bandwidth of that bus. Now what could be true and I don't know, the PATA/SATA bus could be split among it's ports (If you have 4 ports, it's not 150MB/s per port but for the whole bus like in the case of USB) so the benefit of a faster bus can be easily seen with more than one drive.
 
drizzt81 said:
depends on who made them and what RAID you want to run. Note that WinXP doesn't support RAID 1 or 5, leaving you only with R-0 and spanned disks (JBOD).
IIRC, 3ware was the top dog when it came to PATA raid performance. You should be able to get some decent deals on used cards.
entry level add-in cards (which are essentially a software solution) are around $10-$20. As with most things, there is barely an upper limit... I would not spend "much" on a legacy solution anymore. I recall some 3ware cards costing around $400+


Win2K3 may. WinXP certainly does not, since it does not support software RAID-5. Oh, before you come along quoting some article from Toms/ the C't or similar, be aware that the suggested modifications are likely in violation of the EULA and certainly not supported by MS.

Most nested "RAID" levels do not use JBOD as the underlying. I have not heard to anyone doing this with any raid controller.


Most higher end raid controllers allow for nested raid levels, so you wouldn't need more than one card, unless you ran out of ports. You could also have the hardware controller take care of the bottom raid level and then software raid the top level.
Click to expand...


Didn't know that XP doesn't support RAID 1 or 5, but since I use Windows 2000 Advanced Server, I have no issues. Does Windows 2000 pro support Raid 1 or Raid 5?
 
imzjustplayin said:
Didn't know that XP doesn't support RAID 1 or 5, but since I use Windows 2000 Advanced Server, I have no issues. Does Windows 2000 pro support Raid 1 or Raid 5?
Click to expand...
No, only the server versions.
 
imzjustplayin said:
Sorry but SATA isn't faster than PATA, SATA II or not. Yes the drive interface is faster at 150MB/s or 300MB/s (SATA and SATA II respectively) but most drives if not all drives can't utilize the bandwidth provided by the bus' speed. PATA/SATA drives for burst rates peak at 87MB/s (can't find the reference) but I have never seen it go past that. Now, if you're talking about a RAID configuration, you can go above that. Having said that, because each drive in the SATA configuration get's its own channel, you could never max out the bandwidth of that bus. Now what could be true and I don't know, the PATA/SATA bus could be split among it's ports (If you have 4 ports, it's not 150MB/s per port but for the whole bus like in the case of USB) so the benefit of a faster bus can be easily seen with more than one drive.
Click to expand...


Newer and faster drives are only coming out in the sata standard, most 16MB cache drives are coming out for sata and not IDE, seagates perpendicular storage drives are only sata, WDs raptors are only sata. The max bursts arent that much better but with newer drives they beat out the old for sustained performance.
 
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