Win7 Software Raid

[railfrog]

I have just found out that Win7 pro has a built in software raid.

I have looked at the disk management and i have to change the disk to dynamic to be able to use the raid.
I have 2 identical disks installed, C & D.
I am putting everything on C and want to Raid1 on D.

Do i have to change both disks to dynamic or just the destination?

Has anyone had any experience of this software raid and is it any good?

[ShyguyXPC]

I did Software RAID 0 for a while with Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (release Candidate version), but not RAID 1, so not sure on the issue of Dynamic Disk being for both or just the 2nd Disc.

I would think it would need to be both, since Drive D could function as the main drive is C failed, and was rebuilt from D, which is more or less the point of RAID 1. But don't quote me on that.


But since I went to Retail Win 7 64bit last spring I've been doing Hardware RAID 0 from the motherboards controller instead of through Windows.

[GroundZero3]

I haven't used it since Windows 2003 but it the software raid back then was slow. If you are wanting to keep any type of performance on your machine I would look into a hardware raid solution

[railfrog]

I haven't used it since Windows 2003 but it the software raid back then was slow. If you are wanting to keep any type of performance on your machine I would look into a hardware raid solution

What scale of performance hit are we talking about?

I am only a casual gamer and not too worried if things take an extra second or two to complete.

[GroundZero3]

Well remember raid1 is a a mirror so any changes you make on the operating system will be mirrored to the second drive. That is one performance hit, then you are using the OS to manage the raid which is a hit too.

I think you will be fine with what you are wanting to do, I just didn't like how clunky the raid setup felt. At my last job we had some kind of server host housing data running windows 2003 and using that raid 1 software built into windows I always had trouble with it when a drive failed

[railfrog]

Ok...so now i'm pi$$ed off.

Converted both disks to Dynamic and the Raid options are greyed out.

??

[Steve R Jones]

The built in Windows Help file would probably help...but ya should check this out:

Setting Up OS RAID With Windows 7 Ultimate | Overclockers

[railfrog]

The built in Windows Help file would probably help...but ya should check this out:

Setting Up OS RAID With Windows 7 Ultimate | Overclockers

Thanks for that Steve.

Changed D back to basic then was able to create the mirror.