How good is Windows 7 mirror raid?

Hi Guys

Do any of you have experience of using Windows 7 RAID 1.

I'm looking at using it for my data only (Docs, Photo's, Music) so not
intending to boot from it (have SSD for OS and Progs).

Is it reliable or problematic?

Thanks for your time and any info.

Ian

On 12/11/2013 4:57 AM, Ian R wrote:
Hi Guys

Do any of you have experience of using Windows 7 RAID 1.

I'm looking at using it for my data only (Docs, Photo's, Music) so not
intending to boot from it (have SSD for OS and Progs).

Is it reliable or problematic?

Thanks for your time and any info.

Ian
I'm running win7. Where do you set up RAID on it?

If you mean a mirror raid using something on your mobo, i.e fake raid,
no problem. In fact, you can even clone from mirror raid, though in your
case there will not be an OS on it so that is less important. I had a
mobo self destruct and was able to pull the RAID array from one PC and
put it on another.

You still need to copy the files to an external drive should the OS go
psycho and **** all over your files, you accidentally delete something,
power surge from hell, etc. That is, RAID by itself is not enough.

I will say that even with RAID that indicates the array is healthy, I
have had windows require a chkdsk. So your next question is would you be
better off using some NAS based on linux versus a mirror raid on your
windows iron. There are advantages to using a NAS. If you need to
rebuild an array, that PC is basically unusable for the time it takes to
rebuild the array. That said, I rebuilt a mirror stripped array once in
6 years. As it stands, I should have just replaced that array a few
years ago given the age of the drives. I've running 4 drives to make
1.2Tbytes. Very silly by today's standards, though bleeding edge at the
time.

The disadvantages to the NAS are plenty. If it is some COTS (commercial
off the shelf) box, you are dealing with something headless. Some people
don't like that. There is always the risk that if the NAS hardware dies,
the drives might not work in another NAS. I think that is minimal with
mirror raid. A NAS is slower than storage right on your PC databus.

You can take a PC, load linux, and make your own NAS. That leaves a few
other variants. With Linux, that RAID array can be completely software.
It could also be fake raid. You could use a RAID PCI card. Lastly, a
port multiplier.

On 11/12/2013 7:57 AM, Ian R wrote:
Hi Guys

Do any of you have experience of using Windows 7 RAID 1.

I'm looking at using it for my data only (Docs, Photo's, Music) so not
intending to boot from it (have SSD for OS and Progs).

Is it reliable or problematic?

Thanks for your time and any info.

It should be fine, mirroring is one of the easiest RAIDs to make, so it
shouldn't be any problem at all. It's only problem is that it can't set
up raid on USB drives, or boot drives. It's only for internal data drives.

Yousuf Khan

On 11/12/2013 9:37 PM, miso wrote:
On 12/11/2013 4:57 AM, Ian R wrote:
Hi Guys

Do any of you have experience of using Windows 7 RAID 1.

I'm looking at using it for my data only (Docs, Photo's, Music) so not
intending to boot from it (have SSD for OS and Progs).

Is it reliable or problematic?

Thanks for your time and any info.

Ian
I'm running win7. Where do you set up RAID on it?

It's only available on Win 7 Ultimate or Professional, not Home.

Yousuf Khan

On 12/11/2013 9:58 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 11/12/2013 9:37 PM, miso wrote:
On 12/11/2013 4:57 AM, Ian R wrote:
Hi Guys

Do any of you have experience of using Windows 7 RAID 1.

I'm looking at using it for my data only (Docs, Photo's, Music) so not
intending to boot from it (have SSD for OS and Progs).

Is it reliable or problematic?

Thanks for your time and any info.

Ian
I'm running win7. Where do you set up RAID on it?

It's only available on Win 7 Ultimate or Professional, not Home.

Yousuf Khan


I have win 7 pro. What do I look for?

On 12/12/2013 4:16 PM, miso wrote:
On 12/11/2013 9:58 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
It's only available on Win 7 Ultimate or Professional, not Home.

Yousuf Khan


I have win 7 pro. What do I look for?

Sorry, it was actually Win 7 Ultimate and Enterprise, not Professional.

Yousuf Khan

On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:51:38 -0500, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

On 12/12/2013 4:16 PM, miso wrote:
On 12/11/2013 9:58 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
It's only available on Win 7 Ultimate or Professional, not Home.

Yousuf Khan


I have win 7 pro. What do I look for?

Sorry, it was actually Win 7 Ultimate and Enterprise, not Professional.


I have Win 7 Ultimate. What do I look for? In Disk Management, is it the Add
Mirror menu item?

On 13/12/2013 10:43 AM, Mark Perkins wrote:
I have Win 7 Ultimate. What do I look for? In Disk Management, is it the Add
Mirror menu item?

Yup.

Yousuf Khan

On 12/13/2013 2:40 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 13/12/2013 10:43 AM, Mark Perkins wrote:
I have Win 7 Ultimate. What do I look for? In Disk Management, is it
the Add
Mirror menu item?

Yup.

Yousuf Khan

So this makes two differences (at least) in ultimate and pro. This
fracturing is so annoying. The other big difference in ultimate is
native support for NFS.

Ian R wrote:
Hi Guys

Do any of you have experience of using Windows 7 RAID 1.

I'm looking at using it for my data only (Docs, Photo's, Music) so not
intending to boot from it (have SSD for OS and Progs).

Is it reliable or problematic?

Thanks for your time and any info.

Ian

I looked at it but found it completely unusable, since you
cannot put the system drive on it. I mean, really. How
backwards are these people?

Arno