Windows RAID

[Bacon soup]

I'm planning a new Windows 10 build. I ordered a second 1TB SSD because at the end of the day it was cheap and I could afford it. I have no experience with Windows 10. Should I use my motherboard's RAID or use Windows RAID?

[farmernr1]

Hi @Bacon soup

 

I wouldn't use windows raid.

if you have a hardware raid card, use that one, else I'd stick with the motherboard

[Bacon soup]

58 minutes ago, farmernr1 said:

Hi @Bacon soup

 

I wouldn't use windows raid.

if you have a hardware raid card, use that one, else I'd stick with the motherboard

why?

[farmernr1]

In my experience those are in general more reliable

[Lenovo1984]

Why do you need a RAID setup for Windows? You already have an SSD. 

[Bacon soup]

26 minutes ago, Lenovo1984 said:

Why do you need a RAID setup for Windows? You already have an SSD. 

just want to join two drives

[Windows7ge]

Is your goal redundancy or speed/capacity?

[Bacon soup]

3 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

speed/capacity

its just holding my steam games. nothing else.

[Windows7ge]

5 minutes ago, Bacon soup said:

its just holding my steam games. nothing else.

If that's all you're looking to do I wouldn't RAID them. I'd connect it as a D:\ drive then direct Steam to install your games there.

 

If you really want it to be transparent then you have two options that I can think of. You could create a hardware RAID. You could also create a spanned disk in Windows. I don't recommend either.

[Bacon soup]

9 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

a spanned disk in Windows

What is wrong with a spanned disk in windows?

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, Bacon soup said:

What is wrong with a spanned disk in windows?

If I remember how a spanned disk works correctly it fills the first disk all the way up then moves onto the next disk. I've been told SSD's don't really show any performance degradation until you hit like 90%+ but I've also heard once you hit that high some SSDs will drop to speeds as slow as if not slower than HDDs. A spanned volume would do this THEN move onto filling the next disk. Your experience would be terrible.

 

Even if you set the 2nd disk to be first in the spanned pool once it fills up reading/writing data would be a terrible experience.

[Bacon soup]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

If I remember how a spanned disk works correctly it fills the first disk all the way up then moves onto the next disk.

then surely striping in RAID0 is better

[Windows7ge]

Just now, Bacon soup said:

then surely striping in RAID0 is better

Yes...until a drive fails and you lose everything...

 

If you have designated the 2nd disk to be just a Steam library I would still ditch the RAID idea and just make it a D:\ drive.

[Bacon soup]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

Yes...until a drive fails and you lose everything...

 

If you have designated the 2nd disk to be just a Steam library I would still ditch the RAID idea and just make it a D:\ drive.

both disks are only for steam. There is nothing to lose. 

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, Bacon soup said:

both disks are only for steam. There is nothing to lose. 

One of them isn't gong to hold your OS?

[Bacon soup]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

One of them isn't gong to hold your OS?

no OS.

[Windows7ge]

Just now, Bacon soup said:

no OS.

Well if that's the case I think you would see slightly lower latency & load times if you went with your motherboards RAID. Windows Storage Spaces has come along way and works great for general data storage but I don't know about responsiveness for programs expecting quick answers. I'd be the wrong person to ask about that specifically.

[hotrob]

ID use your motherboard raid over windows if you can. You're making use of a dedicated raid controller vs having your cpu do it - it's not a huge load, but it's usually better to use dedicated hardware when possible.

 

My motherboard flat out refused to load my pair of 860 Evos into a raid windows could see, so I striped them in windows. It works fine, so you should see a bump in raw loading speed either way.

[kidroc666]

Windows storage works very well i have two 1TB ssd in a spanned partition for my steam library and it's over 3/4 full there has not ever been a performance hit when loading or running games go for it man..