Windows Raid1+0 and Strange Microsoft Raid

[keket87]

Hello,

 

I’m currently building a server for saves on Windows Server 2016 and i have different questions about that.
I have currently 4x4Tb disks.

Firstly, I wanted to make a Raid 1+0 configuration so I created 2 different storage pools of disks (with 2 disks in each). On each pair, I created a Virtual Disk with a mirror configuration (equivalent to software RAID1). After that, I went to the Disk Manager, and I created a new striped volume with my 2 virtual disks.

So my first question with this kind of configuration is: can I add new pair of disks after the creation of the striped volume (in case I want to expand the number of disks)? And if yes, how can I do that?

 

 

My 2nd question is about the “Mirror” configuration of Windows. In fact, I saw that I was able to make a strange type of raid with 4 disks. I know that 4 disks in a raid 1 is not possible, so if the mirror configuration is equivalent to RAID 1 and that I’m able to used it on 4 drives, what kind of RAID is this ?!?

 

So to resume, i have a mirror configuration on 4 disks of 4TB each, and i got a total of 7.3TB of the 14.6TB available with this kind of configuration. I tested to disconnect 1 disks, there are no data loses and I think no reconstruction because I’m able to consult the data immediately. But if I remove 2 disks the raid is destroyed. I also tested this configuration with only 3 disks and the result is similar: I have half of the total capacity and the possibility to have 1 drive failure without data lose. So it’s between a RAID 1 and a RAID 5 (named parity in the virtual disk wizard of windows) ... and if I correctly understand the description of the “Mirror” configuration, with 5 drives, it’s allowing a double failure... So it also can looks like a raid 6 ...

 

 

So my question is: What is this kind of strange raid provided by Microsoft?!

 

I hope my questions would be clear enough..

Thanks in advance for your answer !

Kevin alias keket87.

[Electronics Wizardy]

You make a raid 10 with just a mirror, it will strip the data on all the disks, don't nest raid, thats bad.

 

When you make the mirror, you pick the copies, you can pick 2 or 3, you pick 2 and its basically raid 10.

 

Its has one drive failures due to how it works. If you want dual drive failure protection , get a triple mirror.

 

Storage spaces puts 2 copes of the files on any of the drives, unlike normal raid 10 where the mirrors are fixed on certain drives. This is what lets you mix raid levels and easily add drives.

[keket87]

27 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You make a raid 10 with just a mirror, it will strip the data on all the disks, don't nest raid, thats bad.

 

When you make the mirror, you pick the copies, you can pick 2 or 3, you pick 2 and its basically raid 10.

 

Its has one drive failures due to how it works. If you want dual drive failure protection , get a triple mirror.

 

Storage spaces puts 2 copes of the files on any of the drives, unlike normal raid 10 where the mirrors are fixed on certain drives. This is what lets you mix raid levels and easily add drives.

Does this strange raid with copy is really a raid ?

 

So which kind of raid is better : the normal one i made firstly or the strange one ?

[lantin]

Any possibility of using hardware RAID instead? I have had mixed results using Microsoft's software level solutions.

 

Maybe worth mentioning too, with a RAID 10, be it software or hardware, you can lose two drives but not any two drives. By this I mean you can lose one drive on either side of the RAID 0. If you lose both drives of the RAID 0 setup your data is gone.

[Electronics Wizardy]

10 minutes ago, keket87 said:

Does this strange raid with copy is really a raid ?

 

So which kind of raid is better : the normal one i made firstly or the strange one ?

this is raid, but not a traditional raid level.

 

id use this over hardware or normal raid as you can mix raid levels, easily expand the array. It also can fix bitrot and is more flexable.

[keket87]

8 minutes ago, lantin said:

Any possibility of using hardware RAID instead? I have had mixed results using Microsoft's software level solutions.

 

Maybe worth mentioning too, with a RAID 10, be it software or hardware, you can lose two drives but not any two drives. By this I mean you can lose one drive on either side of the RAID 0. If you lose both drives of the RAID 0 setup your data is gone.

I would prefer to not use hardware raid ... my motherboard is quite old and i don't want to have trouble in case of break with this old MoBo. With Software raid, i think i could still use my raid even if i have to change my MoBo ... no ?

 

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

this is raid, but not a traditional raid level.

 

id use this over hardware or normal raid as you can mix raid levels, easily expand the array. It also can fix bitrot and is more flexable.

If i start with 4 disks (so allowing 1 drive failure), and in the future i add more disks, will it allow automatically 2 drive failure or should i have to break my raid, or do a special manipulation, to do so ?

And what happens to usable space in this case (allowing 2 drives failures) ? Will it stay half of the total capacity or will it become 33% or something else ?

[Electronics Wizardy]

12 minutes ago, keket87 said:

would prefer to not use hardware raid ... my motherboard is quite old and i don't want to have trouble in case of break with this old MoBo. With Software raid, i think i could still use my raid even if i have to change my MoBo ... no ?

your motherboard doesnt have hardware raid. It has intels rst thing that uses the cpu for calculation and doesn't have a battery backup like a real hardware raid card.

 

13 minutes ago, keket87 said:

If i start with 4 disks (so allowing 1 drive failure), and in the future i add more disks, will it allow automatically 2 drive failure or should i have to break my raid, or do a special manipulation, to do so ?

if you wantt 2 drive failure you need 3 way mirror, but really, a  2 way mirror is fine here. The chance of 2 drives failing at aroudn the same time is very low and thats why you have backups anyways.

 

13 minutes ago, keket87 said:

And what happens to usable space in this case (allowing 2 drives failures) ? Will it stay half of the total capacity or will it become 33% or something else ?

usable space with 3 way mirror is 33% of total space.

 

 

[keket87]

10 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

your motherboard doesnt have hardware raid. It has intels rst thing that uses the cpu for calculation and doesn't have a battery backup like a real hardware raid card.

 

if you wantt 2 drive failure you need 3 way mirror, but really, a  2 way mirror is fine here. The chance of 2 drives failing at aroudn the same time is very low and thats why you have backups anyways.

 

usable space with 3 way mirror is 33% of total space.

 

 

Yes 2 way mirror would be fine !

 

What is the maximum number of drive this kind of raid can handle ? And i there an obligation to add new drives 2 per 2 ? Can i have odd number of disks ?

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, keket87 said:

Yes 2 way mirror would be fine !

 

What is the maximum number of drive this kind of raid can handle ? And i there an obligation to add new drives 2 per 2 ? Can i have odd number of disks ?

You can add as many drives as you want. Storage spaces can handle 100's of drives.

 

You can add a single drive if you want, but it can't rebalance your data, so if four drives are almost full, adding anouther won't give you much more space.

 

 

[keket87]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can add a single drive if you want, but it can't rebalance your data, so if four drives are almost full, adding anouther won't give you much more space.

Hum okay ... but if i add 2 new drive instead of a single one (to stay with even number), will it rebalance the datas ?

[Electronics Wizardy]

11 minutes ago, keket87 said:

Hum okay ... but if i add 2 new drive instead of a single one (to stay with even number), will it rebalance the datas ?

storage spaces can't rebalance data, so once data is on a drive, its not moving unless you delete a volume or file.

[Electronics Wizardy]

19 minutes ago, keket87 said:

Hum okay ... but if i add 2 new drive instead of a single one (to stay with even number), will it rebalance the datas ?

Well im wrong, they added this with a power shell command, add whatever drives you want and rebalance.

[keket87]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

storage spaces can't rebalance data, so once data is on a drive, its not moving unless you delete a volume or file.

So adding new drives will not give me more space ?! And there is no possibility to rebalance datas with reconstruction of things like that ?

[keket87]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Well im wrong, they added this with a power shell command, add whatever drives you want and rebalance.

Oh okay nice then ! And in terms of performances of writing/reading, is it okay ?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, keket87 said:

Oh okay nice then ! And in terms of performances of writing/reading, is it okay ?

Its fine and will be faster than a single drive. You can add a ssd tier if you want faster performance.

[keket87]

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Its fine and will be faster than a single drive. You can add a ssd tier if you want faster performance.

So there are no obligations to have identical drives ?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, keket87 said:

So there are no obligations to have identical drives ?

nope, you can mix and match any brand and size of hdd that you want.

[keket87]

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

nope, you can mix and match any brand and size of hdd that you want.

That's awesome ! Thank you so much for your help !