Computer Related > RAID setups Miscellaneous
Thread Author: smokie Replies: 12

 RAID setups - smokie
I used to know a bit about RAID in the server world but have been musing over using it in my own PC. I have Windows 7 running on an 80Gb SSD drive, which has about 20Gb free space. This drive is intended to be mainly OS and apps, with sizeable data (e.g. iTunes lib, outlook data files) held on D drive. My D drive is a 60Gb SSD drive which currently has about 37Gb free.

I'm more interested in improved performance rather than redundancy and data loss recovery but the more the merrier.

As I understand it I can use any RAID standard with mixed drives, but the size of my new C drive would be limited by the smallest drive.

My m/b supports RAID using VIA drivers but is a bit short of memory @ 2Gb (max capacity) but I don't want to spend any more money.

I've read up about it elsewhere and RAID 1 looks the place to go to give maximum capacity and speed but does anyone have practical experience or suggestions for RAIDing a home PC? And would it be worth the effort?

(Note: D drive is a 64Gb Crucial but only shows 60Gb free in Properties)
Last edited by: smokie on Sat 31 Jul 10 at 09:16
 RAID setups - teabelly
I'd imagine it would be slightly slower if anything. Windows is not really an operating system designed for fancy things like RAID. If you were using linux then it would be worth it. Bearing in mind vista had trouble keeping track of new files (they didn't appear straight away) if Windows 7 uses the same method and you have a mirrored drive then I'd imagine all sorts of problems could ensue!

If you want speed then windows is never the answer in the first place :-)

If the pc feels slow then you have to see where it is bottle necking first. You say you only have 2GB and it is short of memory. There is your answer! Extra RAM is often more crucial to speedy operation. I'd go back to XP. It'll probably go like stink!
 RAID setups - Zero
three points.

Raid is pretty much pointless on such small drives, specially on windows.
I wouldnt raid SSD drives, let alone different makers.
I dont trust via drivers for simple things, let alone Raid,


for your home PC is pretty much a waste of effort.
 RAID setups - smokie
Thanks so far. The PC isn't really that slow, I just fancy a tinker with it, Windows 7 brought a speed increase (probably due to clean install) and the SSD C drive also made quite a difference. Undoubtedly the shortage of memory is the single bottleneck - simple tool like Windows Experience gives me scores of 7 for processor, 6.6 for graphics and gaming graphics, 7.1 for primary hard disk but memory is the bottleneck at 5.5. But to improve that involves spending (mobo plus memory, so quite a bit for anything worthwhile), and I'm in the mood for tinkering but not spending!!

Points take Zero, especially re Via drivers!

But when you look at some peoples reported experience of raiding Windows 7 the results look amazing, even with small drives.
 RAID setups - Bellboy
i bought a server computer from a bust company and took all the raid drives out as it took ages at first boot to go through the do you want to do this that and the other rigmoaroly
 RAID setups - Tooslow
t, "Windows is not really an operating system designed for fancy things like RAID" when it comes to pcs I only know what I know from using the darn thing but there was an article in a recent PC Pro, by John Honeyball I think, slating Apple's os, which is after all a flavour of Linux, and praising Windows in respect of RAID support. This was based on trouble he was having with a small RAID setup. Apple's os gave all sorts of inconsistent results. Windows said "oi, you've got a dud disk in yer RAID setup". Or words to that effect. Shock horror.

I understand that RAID support comes from the motherboard and you need to set it up prior to an OS install. So too much trouble as far I'm concerned!! :-)

Maximum performance and maximum capacity are mutually exclusive.

And finally SSDs are not always faster than mechanical disks.

:-)

JH
 RAID setups - smokie
I thought RAID 1 would give me the double the capacity of the smaller drive with much better performance?

I think SSDs will nearly always outperform mechanical drives at the home PC level.

Anyway I'm off that for a bit - found an old analogue monitor and some cables etc in the loft and now going for a dual screen setup. Doesn't seem to work though. I'm using a dual port nVidia card which recognises it has something else plugged in. nVidia software even reports an analogue display on 2. Then a DVI to VGA converter, into a VGA cable then into the old monitor. Old monitor powers up then goes off, maybe it does that when it gets no signal. I don't think it was bust when it went into the loft so I reckon the cabling arrangement is suspect.
Last edited by: smokie on Sat 31 Jul 10 at 18:10
 RAID setups - Tooslow
Smokie, RAID 1 is aka mirroring. Two identically sized disks each receive a copy of the data. Typically done for resilience. In fact the raison d'etre of RAID is resilience, not performance. Though granted it can be a by product, especially when reading, if you can get two or more disks to squirt their data at you. There's no point using SSDs in a RAID set up.

Your comment about SSDs, well that's not what the reviews say, though if you have first hand experience I'll bow to that. I'm not about the spend the sot of sums that SSDs cost at present to find out for myself.

As for the monitor - have you got it to work as the sole monitor? I'd start there.

JH
 RAID setups - Tigger
My data is on an external Buffalo raid 1 unit. Twin 500Gb disks. I don't think it was terribly expensive (£120?) but may have been a special offer - you get to choose when setting the unit up whether to have 1Tb (no mirroring) or 500Gb (mirrored)
 RAID setups - Tooslow
That's the easy way to do it :-) Is that NAS (attached to your router)?

JH
 RAID setups - rtj70
RAID 1 (mirroring) will give you resilience and can offer slight improvements for read speeds. What you may have meant was RAID 0 (striping) which writes in stripes across multiple disks. The downside is it is more likely to suffer a failure than using a single disk - lose one disk and you lose everything. If data integrity is not important then this can speed things up.

For RAID 0, 1 and indeed 5, all drives need to be the same size.

If you have an SSD drive that is a well performing one, the bottleneck you are possibly seeing is SATA itself. What version of SATA does your motherboard support? If it only take 2Gb RAM then it might be time to upgrade the motherboard.

My data is stored on a NAS these days - a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo. It has mirrored 2Tb disks, i.e. 2 x 2Tb. It's already half full.
 RAID setups - smokie
My shared data is on 2Tb NAS (music, pics) and my personal data (mail, My Docs) on the second SSD. The 2Tb USB is mirrored (by manual syncing, not RAID) to a 2TB USB so if I am doing stuff with my music I tend to work on the USB drive then sync changes back to the NAS as it's considerably quicker than the network one.

I have a plethora of 1Tb USB drives, some of which I've ripped open as it was cheaper than buying a drive. Can't really remember why I got them all - I think I have four, plus a 1.5Tb which is used to backup my NAS drive onto, then stored offsite. Also got one of those hot swap caddies so I can stick drives in and take 'em out as I wish, with SATA performance.

I was thinking of RAID 0 not RAID 1 btw

EDIT: RTJ posted the same time as me, thx for the info. But Wikipedia says Raid 0 can have different size & make disks. btw I don't have a performance problem: just a desire to tinker!


Last edited by: smokie on Sat 31 Jul 10 at 19:54
 RAID setups - rtj70
The version of SATA in use may be the limiting factor. Whether you'd get much more speed from going RAID 0 depends on what you're doing. The SSD along if it's a well performing one should help - but some SSDs are a lot slower than others. Depends if they use single or multi cell technology.

My NAS seems as fast as a disk over USB2 because it attached to a Gigabit LAN. Not tried USB3 yet though.

Like Smokie, my NAS is backed up to a separate 2Tb drive via USB using rsync basically.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 31 Jul 10 at 22:04
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