Win2K software RAID unreliable?

[Ron_Jeremy]

Hi. I was planning on RAIDing a few of my SCSI disks using the disk management tools in Win2K. A friend of mine advised against this. His argument is that since my machine is a home pc & will get rebooted on a regular basis, this (rebooting) can often lead to the collapse of my RAID array. What do you experienced people think?

Cheers,

Ron_Jeremy

If you loan a friend $20 & never see them again, it was worth it.

 

[Guest]

BS, thats what i think. RAID in win2k isnt going to perform as well as a straight hardware RAID setup, buts it damn good and the code is tight (very reliable).

Now, keep in mind that when using a stripe set if one of the disks in the RAID array fails, all the data is lost. when using multiple basic disks this is not the case. your friend might have been refering to this weakness.

Also, remember that when using software RAID only windows 2000 pcs on your network will be able to view data on that RAID volume

ignore everything i say<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by antivirus on 10/15/01 09:56 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Ron_Jeremy]

"Also, remember that when using software RAID only windows 2000 pcs on your network will be able to view data on that RAID volume". Antivirus, why is this so? Makes no logical sense to me. Are you sating I will I be unable to share anything on the stripe set?


Cheers,

Ron_Jeremy

If you loan a friend $20 & never see them again, it was worth it.

 

[mbetea]

yes, because to get software raid, the property changes to dynamic, which isn't file system. and only w2k (and i would think xp) incorporate this code in the OS. also too, you cannot install the OS on a software raid. win2000 setup will not even recognize it.

 

[Guest]

yeah, as MBETEA states its due to the unique properties of the windows 2000 data structure. same is true if you use NTFS 5. no pcs can access your shares unless they are also using NTFS. Now, this only applies to direct access to the file, such as a shared file, etc. you can still use the RAID array to run applications that other ocs on the network or internet can use. web pages or ftp sites, for example are accessible by any file system. I like software RAID. you just ahve to understand when and where to use it. Its excellent for small volumes that you want to be super fast like your swap file, and web sites, game data, etc. put your shared files on another volume. Remember that unlike many hardware solutions you dont have to make the whole freakin disk a RAID array. setup a stripe set that runs accross a few gigs on three different disk. it doesnt have to be the entire size of the three disks.

ignore everything i say

 

[Smilin]

I have no idea where some of this stuff comes from. No idea.

First, software raid 0 and 1 will work just fine in windows 2000. I'm running raid 1 on a server at home and used to run raid 0 on my game rig. Most IDE raid controllers like the Promise controllers are actually software raid anyway! Yes tiz true!. They are really just souped up ATA controllers and your processor will still be doing the actual calculations for the striping and whatnot. Raid 5 on the other hand is just too processor intensive and must be done with dedicated hardware. This is why W2k doesn't do raid 5 very well. It's also the reason why the $99 raid cards only do raid 0,1 & 10. You're going to jump to the $250 range or better to get REAL raid 5.

Striping and mirroring will work just perfect in software under windows 2000 with almost the same processor utilization as a promise raid controller. There's a pretty decent article on all this on anandtech.com I believe.

Now about file systems and network access...this is the one that bugs me. If you have an NT/w2k PC with ANY file system (fat,32,ntfs) you can access the files on it from across the network. Period. Don't give me any shenanigans about.."you can't access an ntfs 5 file/share from a (insert OS here) from across the network." Bullpoop. That's what an operating system is for. You don't need to know what flippin file system is in use if you access it from across the net.

Now, if you pop a drive out of a w2k pc and put it in a nt4 computer you will have some trouble if you've upgraded to dynamic disks (ntfs5).

I'm ranting...

Yes, software raid will work just fine under w2k. You won't get any errors. NT/w2k use transaction logging and all that to make things nice and reliable. If you are REALLY after reliability you might want to skip raid 0 altogether...doubles your chances of a hard drive failure ya know...

 

[Guest]

well, you are right, but no need to be nasty about it. What i meant to say was that NTFS and dynamic disks are not accessible from fat32 'local' systems, not network systems. in a dual-boot situation ntfs files are not accessible from a fat32 OS.

Good to have people who throw in their two cents on these subjects. hell, sometimes what i say is a little off. sometimes i need to be corrected. most of the time, not. but i welcome all commments. just be cool about, amigo.

ignore everything i say

 

[Smilin]

hehe my bad. Didn't mean to flame you!

I wish I had a nickle for every time I've heard someone say "Be sure you don't use ntfs because you can't access it from the windows 98 machines on your network." Grr.

Anyway..sorry bout that.