I took my dual boot Win 7/ Win 10 desktop tower into our local repair shop because it was so slow to boot. After it took about 4-5 minutes to boot, The tech opened it up and looked around and asked me what my hard drives were for.
1 SSD - Win 7 OS
1 SSD - Win 10 OS
2 WD HDs - RAID 1 array
Whereupon the following conversation went something like this:
There is no RAID.
WHAT? There should be a RAID card inside.
Nope, no RAID card inside.
WHAT??
I had brought it into the same shop 10 days ago for the same problem, just got around to starting it up yesterday and had found no improvement in the boot issue, so I was returning with it. I never looked to see if my RAID was intact.
But now I do have another problem, which is deciding whether to buy another RAID card. I’ve been moving RAID cards up as I’ve rebuilt my computers over the years and go way back, starting with MS DOS, and migrating to Windows 3.1, NT, 2000, XP, 7 and 10. I bought my first RAID card so long ago, maybe as far back as NT, but certainly for my Windows 2000 build which would have been March 2000. My RAID array has rescued me twice when one hard drive failed so I’ve been quite committed to them.
But it’s been more than a decade since I bought a newer RAID card and I can’t remember the brand. Has anything changed? Should I instead resort to the MB’s RAID capabilities? I have the Intel DZ87KLT-75K motherboard. I was told way back that it was better to have a card because you can’t transfer your RAID data to a new motherboard. Is that still true?
If so, I’m looking for recommendations for a reliable card to buy. I don’t need it to do anything but RAID 1. I don’t want to have to reload my OS’s.
1 SSD - Win 7 OS
1 SSD - Win 10 OS
2 WD HDs - RAID 1 array
Whereupon the following conversation went something like this:
There is no RAID.
WHAT? There should be a RAID card inside.
Nope, no RAID card inside.
WHAT??
I had brought it into the same shop 10 days ago for the same problem, just got around to starting it up yesterday and had found no improvement in the boot issue, so I was returning with it. I never looked to see if my RAID was intact.
But now I do have another problem, which is deciding whether to buy another RAID card. I’ve been moving RAID cards up as I’ve rebuilt my computers over the years and go way back, starting with MS DOS, and migrating to Windows 3.1, NT, 2000, XP, 7 and 10. I bought my first RAID card so long ago, maybe as far back as NT, but certainly for my Windows 2000 build which would have been March 2000. My RAID array has rescued me twice when one hard drive failed so I’ve been quite committed to them.
But it’s been more than a decade since I bought a newer RAID card and I can’t remember the brand. Has anything changed? Should I instead resort to the MB’s RAID capabilities? I have the Intel DZ87KLT-75K motherboard. I was told way back that it was better to have a card because you can’t transfer your RAID data to a new motherboard. Is that still true?
If so, I’m looking for recommendations for a reliable card to buy. I don’t need it to do anything but RAID 1. I don’t want to have to reload my OS’s.