Real difficulty having Raid 1 drives on windows 10

[Morgiee]

Hi all hope you can help.  I've not built a pc in 8yrs but just built one for my brother.  My aim is to have 2, 4TB Barracuda HDD put into a raid 1 as this will be his main storage drive for family photos, videos etc.  But like the added security its a redundancy setup. Im also running a 3rd drive which is a Samsung 1TB which is his main drive for Windows 10 Home OS, games etc.  

 

I did a raid config on my intel system 8 year ago but this is proving to be bloody hard ha

 

He has a Asus ROG Strix B450-F Motherboard and running Windows 10 Home

 

The Bios is up to date, It has Raidxpert2 utility in the bios 

 

When following Asus instructions to Raid in AMD all the instructions work as per instructions but when the bios is left in modes ( Sata configuration: Raid and CMS disabled) when exiting the bios it just loops straight back into bios!

 

When switching back to ACHI and re enabling CMS the computer allows you to boot to either windows installation, but cant see any drives not even SSD! or if windows is installed, under this PC it only shows the SSD with windows, and disk management shows the two 4tb drives but you cant do anything with them!!!!

 

Has anyone else had this issue or is there another way to do it as clearly Asus Raid suite is flawed!

 

Many Thanks Guys (pics are reference to what I have done)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Do do raid in the bios for a non boot drive. Use storage spaces. in windows, its much better than bios raid.

 

 Leave the bios in ahci mode. 

[Morgiee]

Ahh thanks for you speedy response.  However how can I do Raid in windows as my old Intel gaming system was able to do it.  I don't want just two storage drives as he isn't that technically minded to check the drives are fine, not corrupted and will have sensitive or files he wont want to loose.  So the Raid 1 would be perfect for him as if it fails at least he has a identical clone o the drive.  

 

Thanks 

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, Morgiee said:

Ahh thanks for you speedy response.  However how can I do Raid in windows as my old Intel gaming system was able to do it.  I don't want just two storage drives as he isn't that technically minded to check the drives are fine, not corrupted and will have sensitive or files he wont want to loose.  So the Raid 1 would be perfect for him as if it fails at least he has a identical clone o the drive.  

 

Thanks 

storage spaces will do this. Add both of the hdds in the pool and it will make one mirrored virtual disk. It does the exact same thing as the bios setup, but better.

 

Also make sure you have backups, raid is not a backups, and there are many cases where raid won't protect data.

 

 

[dalekphalm]

9 minutes ago, Morgiee said:

Ahh thanks for you speedy response.  However how can I do Raid in windows as my old Intel gaming system was able to do it.  I don't want just two storage drives as he isn't that technically minded to check the drives are fine, not corrupted and will have sensitive or files he wont want to loose.  So the Raid 1 would be perfect for him as if it fails at least he has a identical clone o the drive.  

 

Thanks 

Very important disclaimer:

RAID is not a replacement for a backup.

 

RAID1 has really, one specific purpose: To protect your system from a catastrophic drive failure, and to ensure uptime during said failure.

 

It will not protect against malware, accidental file deletions, accidentally overwriting that really important document with some fanfic he's writing, etc.

 

So while I don't have any problems with you doing a RAID1 on his Data drive, you had best make sure that any important data is backed up elsewhere.

 

If that data is not being backed up, I would actually recommend using the two drives separately. Configure the first drive as the "Data" drive, and label it as such. Configure the 2nd drive as the backup drive (labeled as such). Then, using your preferred backup software (Built-in Windows or third party), have regular backups of the Data drive sent to the Backup drive. Also turn on shadow-copy/file versioning, if it isn't already.

 

However, you can combine this with RAID1 as well, if you have another drive you can use as backup (or enough cloud storage, etc). This gives you the best of both worlds - in the case of a drive failure, you simply replace the drive and rebuild the array (resync the data to the replacement drive). If you have malware or file corruption/deleted file, etc, you restore from the backup. This is ideal, but I recognize it's more expensive to implement.

 

If I had to choose between using the two drives in RAID1 vs using one to backup the other, I would without question choose backup over RAID.

[Morgiee]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

Very important disclaimer:

RAID is not a replacement for a backup.

 

RAID1 has really, one specific purpose: To protect your system from a catastrophic drive failure, and to ensure uptime during said failure.

 

It will not protect against malware, accidental file deletions, accidentally overwriting that really important document with some fanfic he's writing, etc.

 

So while I don't have any problems with you doing a RAID1 on his Data drive, you had best make sure that any important data is backed up elsewhere.

 

If that data is not being backed up, I would actually recommend using the two drives separately. Configure the first drive as the "Data" drive, and label it as such. Configure the 2nd drive as the backup drive (labeled as such). Then, using your preferred backup software (Built-in Windows or third party), have regular backups of the Data drive sent to the Backup drive. Also turn on shadow-copy/file versioning, if it isn't already.

 

However, you can combine this with RAID1 as well, if you have another drive you can use as backup (or enough cloud storage, etc). This gives you the best of both worlds - in the case of a drive failure, you simply replace the drive and rebuild the array (resync the data to the replacement drive). If you have malware or file corruption/deleted file, etc, you restore from the backup. This is ideal, but I recognize it's more expensive to implement.

 

If I had to choose between using the two drives in RAID1 vs using one to backup the other, I would without question choose backup over RAID.

Very well explained thank you soo much!! before reading this is did put them in pool raid 1 successfully but now.... I prefer the backup method you mentioned.  As I thought the purpose of a raid 1 was the same as a "backup" but for his situation the backup method is best.  so in the case of a system failure, if both or 1 of the drives were fine can he access the files safely on it? only if both drives decided to fail (so really unlucky) then all is lost like a raid 1 with system failure

 

Id prefer the auto backup method as he would forget to do so.  so what's the best way setting up a backup weather third party or via windows, and how would I do it? link to instructions.

 

Many Thanks again!  

[dalekphalm]

13 hours ago, Morgiee said:

Very well explained thank you soo much!! before reading this is did put them in pool raid 1 successfully but now.... I prefer the backup method you mentioned.  As I thought the purpose of a raid 1 was the same as a "backup" but for his situation the backup method is best.  so in the case of a system failure, if both or 1 of the drives were fine can he access the files safely on it? only if both drives decided to fail (so really unlucky) then all is lost like a raid 1 with system failure

 

Id prefer the auto backup method as he would forget to do so.  so what's the best way setting up a backup weather third party or via windows, and how would I do it? link to instructions.

 

Many Thanks again!  

Here's one guide on using the Windows 10 backup system:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/how-to-back-up-restore-your-documents-in-windows-10#:~:text=In Windows 10%2C click on,to "Add a drive."

 

That's a good place to start.

 

Which particular system you use depends on if you want other features that this doesn't support, so I would start here and then determine whether it meets your needs.

 

You may also want to take an Image "clone" of the system drive and store that on your Data Drive. This captures the OS and programs in case you ever need to refresh the system (or the system drive dies and needs replacing).

 

You can do that with Windows 10 using the System Image Backup tool:

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-create-a-full-system-backup-in-windows-10/

 

Or you can use something like CloneZilla or one of the many third party tools.

 

I would capture a new System Drive image backup every six months or so (or more frequently if you modify the system drive often, such as installing a bunch of new programs or after major OS updates).

 

You can store these image files on the Data Drive, and then it'll automatically get backed up with everything else.

[Morgiee]

5 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Here's one guide on using the Windows 10 backup system:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/how-to-back-up-restore-your-documents-in-windows-10#:~:text=In Windows 10%2C click on,to "Add a drive."

 

That's a good place to start.

 

Which particular system you use depends on if you want other features that this doesn't support, so I would start here and then determine whether it meets your needs.

 

You may also want to take an Image "clone" of the system drive and store that on your Data Drive. This captures the OS and programs in case you ever need to refresh the system (or the system drive dies and needs replacing).

 

You can do that with Windows 10 using the System Image Backup tool:

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-create-a-full-system-backup-in-windows-10/

 

Or you can use something like CloneZilla or one of the many third party tools.

 

I would capture a new System Drive image backup every six months or so (or more frequently if you modify the system drive often, such as installing a bunch of new programs or after major OS updates).

 

You can store these image files on the Data Drive, and then it'll automatically get backed up with everything else.

Many thanks again, I know this is all probably simple but I need to auto setup for him and know backups are done.

 

So I've decided to split the drives and have a storage drive and a backup drive.

 

I've also relocated the my documents, pictures,videos and downloads directory location to the Storage drive as this folders will be what needs to be backed up.

 

The way I'm thinking it but correct me if I'm wrong. Is not to do a clone backup of the SSD drive which is my windows OS drive as he wont be putting anything important on the desktop so if the system corrupted or hads to be re installed nothing important is there as long as I will be able to still acced the storage and backup hdd during system failure and after with them being stores on separate drives to the Wind 10 OS SSD?

 

If this is fine then I want to be able to do a automatic backup from storage drive to backup drive as and when new files or folders are put onto storage drive.  That way for simplicity for him whatever was on the storage drive prior to failure is backed up to the backup drive.

 

If this is possible which software is best to deliver this task?

 

I tried windows 10 backup which looks to be what I need but when selecting the drive to backup it doesn't show the D:/storage drive just the E:/ backup drive? 

 

Many Thanks again for your help, please refer to photos below for reference to this post.  

 

 

Current Drive Setup:

 

Folders relocated from c:/ to D:/storage drive

 

Windows wont show D:/ as a backup from option just Drive E:/ which is the destination drive.  

[DigitalGoat]

The way you have it set up, D:\ is not a storage drive from Windows point of view, it is a working drive. The reason it won't show D:\ as a backup location is because D:\ is what it will be backing up, so E:\ is the only location you can choose. So as far as Windows is concerned (and rightly so) it will not backup to the working drive as that would be pointless. Move the doc, pics etc folders back to C:\ and D:\ will be available to store backups.

[dalekphalm]

On 9/12/2020 at 4:04 PM, Morgiee said:

Many thanks again, I know this is all probably simple but I need to auto setup for him and know backups are done.

 

So I've decided to split the drives and have a storage drive and a backup drive.

 

I've also relocated the my documents, pictures,videos and downloads directory location to the Storage drive as this folders will be what needs to be backed up.

 

The way I'm thinking it but correct me if I'm wrong. Is not to do a clone backup of the SSD drive which is my windows OS drive as he wont be putting anything important on the desktop so if the system corrupted or hads to be re installed nothing important is there as long as I will be able to still acced the storage and backup hdd during system failure and after with them being stores on separate drives to the Wind 10 OS SSD?

 

If this is fine then I want to be able to do a automatic backup from storage drive to backup drive as and when new files or folders are put onto storage drive.  That way for simplicity for him whatever was on the storage drive prior to failure is backed up to the backup drive.

 

If this is possible which software is best to deliver this task?

 

I tried windows 10 backup which looks to be what I need but when selecting the drive to backup it doesn't show the D:/storage drive just the E:/ backup drive? 

 

Many Thanks again for your help, please refer to photos below for reference to this post.  

 

 

Current Drive Setup:

-snip-

That looks like a good layout to start with.

On 9/12/2020 at 4:04 PM, Morgiee said:

Folders relocated from c:/ to D:/storage drive

-snip-

This is unnecessary, though totally fine to do (Windows File Backup can backup your files from either C or D drive or both).

On 9/12/2020 at 4:04 PM, Morgiee said:

Windows wont show D:/ as a backup from option just Drive E:/ which is the destination drive.  

So it's been a while since I setup Windows 10 backup, but I believe the "Add a drive" option here is the destination drive for the backups. So E: would be the correct drive here. Can you select E: or is it greyed out? I cannot tell from your screenshot.

 

If you can, try selecting E:.