RAID 1 array as secondary drive question

[taylorpro]

I'm looking to put an SSD in my machine over the holiday, and am looking to setup my raid 1 array while I'm at it. Now I have a few questions. I know how to make the array. I know to make a single drive my secondary drive (D drive, for example) with the SSD as the boot drive. However, there are a few details I'm curious about.

1) When I make the RAID 1 array, when i go into windows to create the "D" drive to use as storage, will i only "see" one drive? Or will I see all of them? If so, how does one handle that?

2) I know with it setup how I want, if i were to lose one of the HDD's IN the array, I'd still have my data on the other. BUT, say if I were to lose the SSD. With the files being sort of "linked" to the setup in that it's just the D drive for that particular setup, how would I be able to recover my information that's stored to the array?

I just want to make sure I cross my T's and dot my i's before I set everything up since I have to format things to set all this up. I appreciate all the help.

[ultimatemythbuster]

I'm looking to put an SSD in my machine over the holiday, and am looking to setup my raid 1 array while I'm at it. Now I have a few questions. I know how to make the array. I know to make a single drive my secondary drive (D drive, for example) with the SSD as the boot drive. However, there are a few details I'm curious about.

1) When I make the RAID 1 array, when i go into windows to create the "D" drive to use as storage, will i only "see" one drive? Or will I see all of them? If so, how does one handle that?

2) I know with it setup how I want, if i were to lose one of the HDD's IN the array, I'd still have my data on the other. BUT, say if I were to lose the SSD. With the files being sort of "linked" to the setup in that it's just the D drive for that particular setup, how would I be able to recover my information that's stored to the array?

I just want to make sure I cross my T's and dot my i's before I set everything up since I have to format things to set all this up. I appreciate all the help.

1: Windows will see the RAID array as a single drive.

 

2: As long as you make sure that your important files are on the RAID array.  Any re-install of Windows you might need to do should have no problem reading the files from the array.  Your files on the array aren't really "linked" to the specific Windows installation.

[skullbringer]

I assume you are talking about a hardware Raid array via the sata controller.

 

1. it will only see one drive

 

2. as the raid array has nothing to do with your windows installation, all your data will be save.

 

A little thing to note is that you can only run your sata controller in either ahci or raid. Assuming your boot drive is already installed you can either setup the raid array on a secondary sata controller on the board. Or you can set the intel controller to raid which will cause your boot drive not to be bootable, and do a reinstall in raid mode.

[taylorpro]

Thanks guys. As to how I planned on doing it, I'm honestly not 100% sure. I wanted to do it through the bios capabilities. But honestly I'm not to apt on the AHCI settings and if I'd need them. I'll be running a single 250gb samsung evo ssd as the boot drive, two seagate 1tb hdd's in raid 1 for storage, everything will be formatted or fresh when i set it all up, and I have an asrock extreme 4 z77 motherboard. I appreciate the help fella's

[StitchMonkey]

A little thing to note is that you can only run your sata controller in either ahci or raid. Assuming your boot drive is already installed you can either setup the raid array on a secondary sata controller on the board. Or you can set the intel controller to raid which will cause your boot drive not to be bootable, and do a reinstall in raid mode.

 

Can you elaborate on this?  So if you set the controller to RAID as you say, does that mean everything on that controller is in a RAID?  Can you have a boot drive and other drives plugged into the controller set to RAID. . . and I guess have it not in a RAID?  If so what is the benefit to ahci?

[IdeaStormer]

The Intel Rapid Storage App will show you all the details of your drives, RAID array's and everything drives.

[IdeaStormer]

Can you elaborate on this?  So if you set the controller to RAID as you say, does that mean everything on that controller is in a RAID?  Can you have a boot drive and other drives plugged into the controller set to RAID. . . and I guess have it not in a RAID?  If so what is the benefit to ahci?

 

RAID mode allows you to add RAID arrays but you can still add drives without RAID as in AHCI mode.

My advice to anyone even dreaming of RAID is to set your SATA mode to RAID from day one so when you do get to that point it will work without too much fuss, as running in RAID mode with no RAID array's is just like AHCI.

[skullbringer]

Can you elaborate on this?  So if you set the controller to RAID as you say, does that mean everything on that controller is in a RAID?  Can you have a boot drive and other drives plugged into the controller set to RAID. . . and I guess have it not in a RAID?  If so what is the benefit to ahci?

 

all drives that are run by that controller are in that mode, so all 6 sata ports will be running in raid on the intel controller. ahci allows faster boot times and in theory better bandwidth utilization. so either set it to raid from the first day, as @IdeaStromer already said, and run all your drives from the priomary intel sata controller, or use different controllers for your boot drive and raid array, if your board supports it.

[taylorpro]

all drives that are run by that controller are in that mode, so all 6 sata ports will be running in raid on the intel controller. ahci allows faster boot times and in theory better bandwidth utilization. so either set it to raid from the first day, as @IdeaStromer already said, and run all your drives from the priomary intel sata controller, or use different controllers for your boot drive and raid array, if your board supports it.

 

How much difference in speed is there really between the two modes? If my mobo doesn't support having each in their own format, is it even worth looking into?

[skullbringer]

How much difference in speed is there really between the two modes? If my mobo doesn't support having each in their own format, is it even worth looking into?

 

the raid controller has to load the profiles every time the system boots, this will take 10-20 seconds. Actual transferspeeds will stay pretty much the same.

Personally, a few month back I was also running a single ssd as a boot drive and tried to setup a Raid 0 of Hdd for game capture. I had the same problem. I tried setting up Raid on the primary controller and booting via ahci from the second controller, I tried setting the primary sata controller to Raid and completely reinstalling my boot drive, but the boot times were significantly longer, so I was looking for a different solution.

 

Currently, I am running all my drives on the primary (intel) sata controller in ahci. So no "hardware" raid array. I used the drive management system in windows to create a software raid array. Boot up times and transferspeeds of the boot drive are still very fast, as its running in achi, and the transfer speeds of the raid are also as good as running a hardware raid 0 array. There are some tradeoffs, 1. the array goes to sleep after not beeing used for some time and needs about 30 seconds to wake back up, and 2. the raid array is bound to your boot drive, considering you want to run raid 0, you would loose all your data if your ssd broke.

 

Seems like there is no trouble free solution.

[taylorpro]

the raid controller has to load the profiles every time the system boots, this will take 10-20 seconds. Actual transferspeeds will stay pretty much the same.

Personally, a few month back I was also running a single ssd as a boot drive and tried to setup a Raid 0 of Hdd for game capture. I had the same problem. I tried setting up Raid on the primary controller and booting via ahci from the second controller, I tried setting the primary sata controller to Raid and completely reinstalling my boot drive, but the boot times were significantly longer, so I was looking for a different solution.

 

Currently, I am running all my drives on the primary (intel) sata controller in ahci. So no "hardware" raid array. I used the drive management system in windows to create a software raid array. Boot up times and transferspeeds of the boot drive are still very fast, as its running in achi, and the transfer speeds of the raid are also as good as running a hardware raid 0 array. There are some tradeoffs, 1. the array goes to sleep after not beeing used for some time and needs about 30 seconds to wake back up, and 2. the raid array is bound to your boot drive, considering you want to run raid 0, you would loose all your data if your ssd broke.

 

Seems like there is no trouble free solution.

Appreciate that explanation. Makes more sense now. I wonder if it'd be more affective in this implementation to just run a 2nd hdd and do frequent backups rather than full redundancy in raid 1. That was my only concern was losing my data, and raid 1 seemed the simplest way to do that. But i WANT the fast speeds of the ssd as well so maybe it causes more issues than benefits. 

Was the boot time (and loading the RAID profiles) the ONLY time that there was a slowed affect to do the raid controller configuration? If its JUST the boot time that's slightly delayed, I could probably deal with it with the ease of everything else. To me that seems like the better option. However, if programs in general, shutting down, etc, are ALL slowed by the raid config, it doesn't seem worth it

[skullbringer]

Appreciate that explanation. Makes more sense now. I wonder if it'd be more affective in this implementation to just run a 2nd hdd and do frequent backups rather than full redundancy in raid 1. That was my only concern was losing my data, and raid 1 seemed the simplest way to do that. But i WANT the fast speeds of the ssd as well so maybe it causes more issues than benefits. 

Was the boot time (and loading the RAID profiles) the ONLY time that there was a slowed affect to do the raid controller configuration? If its JUST the boot time that's slightly delayed, I could probably deal with it with the ease of everything else. To me that seems like the better option. However, if programs in general, shutting down, etc, are ALL slowed by the raid config, it doesn't seem worth it

 

The only real slow down I felt, was during boot times when the sata controller is loading raid profiles. When booted up, loading programs like adobe photoshop, premiere, or general games like battlefield 3, I did not feel any slow down.

Running a backup software and hdd is a valid alternative, although it doesnt save your data instantaniously. But if the data to back up isnt highly critical, a normal external backup hdd seems much more appropiate, considering all the problems setting up a raid array would cause.

[taylorpro]

The only real slow down I felt, was during boot times when the sata controller is loading raid profiles. When booted up, loading programs like adobe photoshop, premiere, or general games like battlefield 3, I did not feel any slow down.

Running a backup software and hdd is a valid alternative, although it doesnt save your data instantaniously. But if the data to back up isnt highly critical, a normal external backup hdd seems much more appropiate, considering all the problems setting up a raid array would cause.

It's definitely not critical that it instantly backs up the data. But I just figured it'd be less to deal with by just instantly transferring. Looking around a bit more it seems that through using Intel's rapid storage technology,if I set the sata config to raid, and have all my drives in the Intel sata ports, then any drive not assigned to a raid would automatically default to ahci and the ones assigned to raid would obviously retain raid configuration. Now, if this is the case, it seems the only negative to using the raid setup would be the few seconds added at the beginning to load the raid configuration.

[skullbringer]

It's definitely not critical that it instantly backs up the data. But I just figured it'd be less to deal with by just instantly transferring. Looking around a bit more it seems that through using Intel's rapid storage technology,if I set the sata config to raid, and have all my drives in the Intel sata ports, then any drive not assigned to a raid would automatically default to ahci and the ones assigned to raid would obviously retain raid configuration. Now, if this is the case, it seems the only negative to using the raid setup would be the few seconds added at the beginning to load the raid configuration.

 

I, personally, could never get Intel's rst to work properly, but in theory it is a useful addition to any raid setup.

[taylorpro]

I, personally, could never get Intel's rst to work properly, but in theory it is a useful addition to any raid setup.

What issue did you run into? From what I see it looks fairly straight forward

[skullbringer]

What issue did you run into? From what I see it looks fairly straight forward

 

it did not detect the raid, so I could not install it.

[taylorpro]

 

it did not detect the raid, so I could not install it.

 

 

You have to make the raid within the irst bios. Launch it with control+I, and build the raid within that software

[airdeano]

hum, interesting. just watched JJ (ASUS) and he had an interesting setup idea.

 

2 480 SSD run in RAID 0

1 1TB Raptor to mirror that RAID 0

2 4TB HDD one for storage and second as mirrored backup

 

so the RAID 0 and Raptor are now RAID 1 and the HDDs are RAID 1 and all of this

is to be worked through the UEFI or RST?

 

if so, this is what i need for my local workstation. the redundancy and application speeds.