Windows 7 disk (software raid) resync speed up

[fatetrader]

I'm using Windows 7 RAID 1 Mirror, instead of that integrated one in the mobo as it suits me better.

I've just bought 2 bigger drives and copied all data to one of them. Windows resync is painfully slow on windows as it only uses about 10% of the drive's speed to do it.

I'm thinking about manually copying everything to the second drive and than mirroring them. Do you think it would speed up the resync? All the data would already be on the second drive so logic suggest that there will be no need to copy anything.

I'm just afraid that maybe windows would choose to wipe the second drive and do it from the scratch anyway.

Does anyone tried this before?

 

[fatetrader]

Well I found the answer to my question. Resync has to be done by a system for one simple reason, to add a mirror drive, second one has to be blank without any volume and formatting... Doh!

Update:
Resync has just finished after precisely 12:48:30, this is how long it took windows to sync two WD Red 6TB drives, where main one was filled with 2.4TB data so it gives approximately 3.3MB/s. I wonder if it would be better to mirror them empty and then copy data on them, or it goes sector by sector of the drive to do it and this is making it so slow... I have no idea.

 

[cb831]

You're lucky - for two 3T WD3001-FYYG SAS drives I'm at 9% after 13h

And 54% after 72h...

 

[Julian Janev]

PROBLEM SOLVED! No more slow resynching! I have read so many forums to find an answer and finally I found it! I have a new, powerful PC (Intel i5, 8GB RAM) and I'm using Windows 7 Pro Software RAID 1 (Mirror) in AHCI mode with 2x HDD Seagate Constelation 1TB (128MB) and separate SSD for system partition. At first I used 4 partitions on the RAID 1 and when I needed resynching for the first time, it took about 36 hours!!! Then I format the HDDs and tried with 2 partitions. Soon the PC needed to resync again and it took about 36 hours again! Finally I understood that I must have ONLY ONE partition on the RAID and resynching now is about 1,5 hours!!! What a difference! Why nobody writes for this? 🙂 With RAID 1 controller integrated in the mainboard, there is no problem with few partitions and resynching time is again about 1,5 hours. But now my Software RAID works fine, I like it's flexibility and resyncing is normal!