so am i just crazy, or does vista business not do software RAID1?

[faxon]

pretty straight forward, does the windows disk management console have the ability to create a software RAID1?


as another topic, can you do RAID5 in software, or would i be better off just buying a moderately priced SATA RAID controller so i dont risk loosing my array if i have to reset or flash my bios? i have never set either up in pure software before but i have had issues with on board controllers in the past and i would like to avoid loosing my arrays to them if i can help it.

 

[RebateMonger]

Neither XP nor Vista support software-based redundant RAID (RAID 1 or RAID 5).

 

[faxon]

sucks. im assuming it isnt planned for windows 7 either then? might as well start looking into a good RAID card then. any recommendations? doesnt have to be super high performance so long as it doesnt hinder the ability to play back HD video content without buffering. im going to be backing up music and videos onto whatever array(s) i set up, depending on when i can budget out a few more 1tb drives to go with the 2 spinpoint f1s i already have

ed: given the repeated press releases on AT for highpoint cards, i took a look at what newegg had in stock and came up with 4 options, and pretty much any of them will work okay. the only flipside is i was hoping to maybe get a card with DRAM cache onboard if possible, unless it doesnt much make sense for what im doing. i cant find the press releases anymore but im hoping to not have to spend more than $300, putting 3 of these cards within my budget. im also open to recommendations from other manufacturers. my primary interest is having 8 SATA ports, since i dont want to be limited to 4 drives to an array, and RAID5/6 support is a must. if i expand any single array to 8 drives for storage, i will definitely set up a RAID6 volume for extra redundancy, since the amount of data on a single volume of that size will probably be astronomical, and loosing all of it, while not in itself a total loss, will probably require thousands of hours of me ripping all my music and DVDs again manually, and then transcoding everything again

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...3a17908%2c1935%3a15356

 

[faxon]

so upon reading more, it seems that highpoint's SATA raid cards have a habit of bricking drives so they only work with highpoint controllers unless you RMA the drives. guess i will do some research, but again recommendations are welcome. there arent many options on newegg to choose from so if there is a better site for raid controller cards by all means make a recommendation. im going to get some sleep now, its 5 am lol

ed: btw the card needs to work with vista and FreeNAS

 

[Nothinman]

sucks. im assuming it isnt planned for windows 7 either then?

MS doesn't give you any redundant RAID levels in their workstation OSes which is pretty dumb, really. There's no reason they can't other than they don't think you'll need it so they don't let you have it.

 

[IBDoomed]

When I look at disk management in 7 ultimate, it shows mirror as a greyed out option (I only have one disk).

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: faxon
pretty straight forward, does the windows disk management console have the ability to create a software RAID1?


as another topic, can you do RAID5 in software, or would i be better off just buying a moderately priced SATA RAID controller so i dont risk loosing my array if i have to reset or flash my bios? i have never set either up in pure software before but i have had issues with on board controllers in the past and i would like to avoid loosing my arrays to them if i can help it.

you only lose the array from a cmos flash if you use motherboard based raid... not OS level raid.

that being said, windows doesn't have that cause it is a POS.

make a fileserver running solaris for ZFS.

 

[Nothinman]

make a fileserver running solaris for ZFS.

But then you're stuck using Solaris...

 

[faxon]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

make a fileserver running solaris for ZFS.

But then you're stuck using Solaris...

i would do this, except for the fact that i dont actually have enough SATA ports left, at least on my main systems motherboard, to add the drives i would need for a 4 drive RAID5. in it's current state my UD3P has 1xVraptor, 2x 400GB 7200.10, 1x500GB 7200.10, 2xSpinpoint F1, and 1x LG BD-ROM. this leaves me with a grand total of 1 SATA port left, and the only other system i have up and running now has a bad SATA port, leaving me with only 3 on that motherboard. i need a hardware controller regardless of where i set this up, unless i spend the money on a new motherboard instead, which seems kind of pointless since all the boards with excessive amounts of SATA ports that also have ICH10R for when it makes sense to use it are all around $100 anyway, which is more than i paid for the e5200 in my 680i LT. i got the 680i for only $30 as well, which makes the entire idea of a motherboard upgrade seem sour to me lol.

ed: at this point in time, the only thing i will consider adding to my main system drive wise is either another Vraptor or an SSD depending on what my budget is later this year around the time i buy a 250-300GB ultra high performance drive

 

[taltamir]

you could potentially do a mobo only replacement for the system with the bad SATA port, or just use an SATA controller card without raid (or turn off its "raid") and use software based raid in linux or solaris or whatever flavor of open source you want.
Sure I liked linux a lot better than solaris, but for ZFS ill use it.

 

[RebateMonger]

faxon,

You never really said what you are trying to accomplish. Are you looking for large arrays? How large? Do the arrays need to be easily expandable? Redundancy? Read speed? Write speed? Are there going to be backups?

The best options really depend on those things.

 

[Zoomer]

What about the PERC 5i?

http://forums.slickdeals.net/s...hlight=raid+cheap+dell
http://forums.slickdeals.net/s...hlight=raid+cheap+dell

Good luck.

 

[sxr7171]

Sounds like a job for WHS.

 

[faxon]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
faxon,

You never really said what you are trying to accomplish. Are you looking for large arrays? How large? Do the arrays need to be easily expandable? Redundancy? Read speed? Write speed? Are there going to be backups?

The best options really depend on those things.

i need support for large (4TB+) easily expandable arrays with RAID5/6 support (redundancy), read speed isnt as important buy i need to be able to play uncompressed blu-rays off of it without stuttering, so preferably something in the range of 50mb/s sequential (the Spinpoint F1s i have average twice that). write speed should be similar if possible. these are going to be primary backups of most of my media. i have been considering a lot of options for a while but now im at a point where i have to set up the array soon (within a month) or im going to completely run out of space unless i start utilizing my 1TB drives in a non redundant manner, which i would like to avoid

 

[coolVariable]

??? Install windows, install RAID drivers, voila???

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: faxon

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
faxon,

You never really said what you are trying to accomplish. Are you looking for large arrays? How large? Do the arrays need to be easily expandable? Redundancy? Read speed? Write speed? Are there going to be backups?

The best options really depend on those things.

i need support for large (4TB+) easily expandable arrays with RAID5/6 support (redundancy), read speed isnt as important buy i need to be able to play uncompressed blu-rays off of it without stuttering, so preferably something in the range of 50mb/s sequential (the Spinpoint F1s i have average twice that). write speed should be similar if possible. these are going to be primary backups of most of my media. i have been considering a lot of options for a while but now im at a point where i have to set up the array soon (within a month) or im going to completely run out of space unless i start utilizing my 1TB drives in a non redundant manner, which i would like to avoid

i find 1080 content can stutter on specifically intense scenes/videos when playing across ethernet (gigabit) from a fileserver. I solve it by copying it off my file server to my local drive before playing.

Any type of server, WHS or better OS, will potentially suffer from this issue.

 

[faxon]

i havent had any issues with it before, though the 1080p recordings i have from HBO may not be as high bitrate as blu-ray movies. my family has a readynas NV+, which is where most of the recordings are stored, and i just noticed the price for an empty enclosure has dropped $300 since the last time i checked, to $500 on newegg, $489 on tiger direct, and mwave has a special on a 1TB for $511 if they get it back in stock. also, i was reading that there have been issues installing a SATA/RAID card into the second slot (x8) on a UD3P, so i may have to replace my motherboard or use the card in a home made NAS box anyway. is there any truth to this issue? if so i will look into the possibility of stuttering issues with uncompressed blu-ray quality movies on the NV+ platform, and then come back when i have the money for such a solution

 

[Shmee]

I can confirm that my copy of win7 supports mirroring and Raid5.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Shmee
I can confirm that my copy of win7 supports mirroring and Raid5.

there is also a built in "extend partition" and "shrink partition" option. (right click my computer, select manage, select disk drives)

 

[faxon]

ah nice, thx for checking on that i forgot you had it installed on your Q6600 system. i will have to check that out i guess. i wasnt planning on getting anything less than win7 professional so chances are it's probably included in the version i end up buying or getting from the MSDN AA membership my college has

 

[Shmee]

Actually, both my computers have win7 x64 RC now I actually use it as my main OS for the time being. Haven't even tried vista SP2 yet. Also, if you are interested, I think the RC is still available, though not sure.

 

[dac7nco]

faxon,

I didn't know that AT had spoken well of Highpoint. Information Security is a paranoia of mine. I will never recomend a Highpoint card to anyone - not my worst enemy... anyone. Get the cheapest Areca controller you can find. This will be 1: much more reliable than any motherboard RAID, 2: use nearly no CPU resources, and Finally 3: MUCH faster. Onboard SATA-2 is a bottleneck most folks never think of.