How to create a RAID 10 array

Hdesftg · September 21, 2020

In order to implement RAID 10 it is necessary to have at least 4 drives, and if you have an odd number of drives, one of the drives will be used to replace another in case it fails. With that being said, establishing a RAID 10 array is very simple. First, make sure that in your computer's BIOS settings, RAID is enabled. This does not turn on any form of RAID, but rather makes it to where the BIOS doesn’t stop the array from being created. Once you have done this, it is important to make sure that your drives are the same size model. If they are not you can still create the storage array, but none of the benefits of RAID will actually take place or they will only be able to have the size of the smallest drive. After you have verified this, go into the control panel, which can be done by simply typing it into the windows search bar. Go into system and security and then click on manage storage spaces. Press the create a new pool and storage space button and then if it prompts you to be able to make changes to your device, click yes. From the drive selection menu, if you have 4 drives that are going to be in the array, make 2 different pools, each with 2 drives in it. With each pool go into the resiliency heading and change the resiliency type to two mirror. Now do this with the other set of drives so that you will have two different pools of storage, each with mirroring which is also known as RAID 1. This effectively gives you two usable drives, but there is still more to do.

Now that you have your two pools in RAID 1, it is time to implement RAID 0 in each of the pools with each other. To do this, open up disk management by simply typing it into the windows search bar and clicking on it. Now delete each volume to clear out the storage, this is needed for RAID 0 as it is going to take each volume and put part of it into each other so that it will have the performance benefits. Once you have done this for each of your arrays, right click onto one of the drive pairs that is going to be in the array and select new striped volume. In the new window that will open up, select the other RAID 1 arrays that are going to be put in and then click next.

Finally, go through the Windows prompts and wait for the array to finish being built. You may need to restart your computer to get the array working, but other than that your RAID 10 array should be completely working.

Electronics Wizardy · September 21, 2020

If you are using storage spaces, you don't want to enable raid in the bios. Just leave the bios to deault

And in storage spaces you want to setup collumns to 2 for the full performance of raid 10, otherwise, its basically the performance of a single disk or raid 1. Don't do the mixed array with storage spaces and disk managemnt, just messier and more likely to have issues.

Bombastinator · September 21, 2020

Echos of statements made in the raid0 post seem to apply to this one as well. Love the attitude for what little that’s worth.

Hdesftg · September 24, 2020

On 9/20/2020 at 10:27 PM, Bombastinator said:

Echos of statements made in the raid0 post seem to apply to this one as well. Love the attitude for what little that’s worth.

Thank you so much! It was for my computer science class so I figured I'd post it here in case it helps someone.