Bios RAID vs Windows software RAID. Stripe mode.

Forums › Desktop computing › Bios RAID vs Windows software RAID. Stripe mode.

rayonline

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#195032 3-Apr-2016 18:08

Hi all - what is the difference in speed between doing this via the BIOS or via Windows?

I have 2x Seagate Baracudda 500GB.

At the moment I have C: with a SSD. 1x Seagate is my data drive. 1x Seagate as my internal backup. I also have 2x external HDDs as backup using SyncBak so no silly formats etc ... If my computer blows up all my data are available on my 2x externals.

Due to filesizes of modern dSLRs my 500GB are low in space. Rather than buying another 2x 1TB drives. What about combining the 2x internal Seagates together. I still have 2 backup drives outside the machine.

I know they are hardware tied down but the backup drives can be accessed on any PC or laptop. The 500GB I had since 2009 so if I get another 500GB they would last me a good few more years.

Thanks.

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#1525271 3-Apr-2016 18:22

If you dont need speed, then do not stripe.

I wouldnt be bothering to buy drives that small anyway to replace it, 3TB is the sweet spot when I did the numbers a little while ago, could be 4TB now.

Doing it in windows means you cannot boot it, not an issue for you, and you can stick the pair of drives into any windows machine _internally_ and then they will import and access just fine.

In the bios (really UEFI now) it means that you can only access it via a compatible board. All the intel ones seem fine when I have moved drives, so long as the board supplies a UEFI that includes raid support, not all do (Think cheap boards) - but if you have a failure and only have a cheap AMD machine at hand, you are out of luck.

You are talking spinning rust storage, so any change in speed between the 2 is immaterial. I found no real difference last time I did it, and stuck with the UEFI striping since that made less clutter in disk management.

Richard rich.ms

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#1525272 3-Apr-2016 18:23

Bios would likely be faster, BIOS is a slightly better idea also as Windows soft RAID is a disaster if you have failure, so is motherboard RAID though.

I wouldn't stripe two drives together, because if one goes you lose the data on both - especially since one drive is aleady 7 years old. Just get a couple 1TB drives.

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#1525305 3-Apr-2016 18:54

Windows storage spaces is much safer option than hardware RAID. I have been using storage spaces since Windows 8 days. You can add or remove any size internal or external hard drive with storage spaces very easily. Software RAID is my preferred option.

Do whatever you want to do man.

hio77

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#1525310 3-Apr-2016 19:08

My storage choice isnt windows based, but worth a consideration as in your case, clearly speed isnt actually a major requirement as much as mass storage.

I run unraid on another machine in the house, the reason i have chosen it as a platform is its very effective for "Cold storage" That being store once, access sometimes Only the disks with the data i want are even spun up Minor but a little powersaving.. all disks are readable on their own, no data is stiped. Personally i love the fact that Sh!t totally hits the fan and i can still rip out the disks and read them - Be it lost whatever was on lost disks.

The array is parity protected, So while i dont worry too much about disks dying, In the event it happens i can replace the disk and rebuild it. I see this as a Last case situation, but a backup alternative if i dont catch a disk before it outright Goes belly up.

Disks you use for the array are a huge factor.

*click graph for a larger view.

Note the following graph, I have one disk, the orange one. which has a dud cable (between speedtests, i switched cables, causing a different drive to have the fault), Im aware of this fault and just have not hit a huge requirement to fix it.

Personally, my current goto buy is the Toshiba 5TB disks They are from amazon, but the price to performance ratio ontop of the usable diskspace just is unmatched. The red and blue disk above are both these. even at their worst, hitting 125MB/s and topping over 200MB/s - Amazon link does have the geekzone tag pre-applied.

The machine this all runs on, is not high end at all. Its old SATA II hardware (Exception being its 4 port HBA that is SATA III), a pretty dated Dual core. It does its task, It does hit a point where System load affects performance but as reading generally pegs a 1GBit line anyway its hardly notable.

End of the day however, Photos/Videos are backed up by crashplan, To take the one step further photos from phone (partly due to making it automatic) are in both dropbox and then synced to crashplan. I absolutely recommend any data you see as Important is kept off site, cloud services do make this easy.

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rayonline

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#1525387 3-Apr-2016 20:53

Thanks. Extend and I guess spanning is quick and painless.

I used Win7 Striped RAID with the spare space ie 30GB with 30GB (2 drives). Only got 117MB/sec with CrystalDisk. SSD on SATA 1 with a 2007 laptop I tested on got 140MB/sec. Seagate by itself or spanned were around 70. SATA 2 and 3 with the SSD was 280MB/sec and 480MB/sec resp.

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#1525478 4-Apr-2016 07:25

Buy a new 3TB drive, plus another the same size for offsite backup. Right now sounds like you're vulnerable to both fire and ransomware. Sync is not backup, use incremental backup.

Storage spaces mirrors work well.

From phone, brief post sorry.

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rayonline

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#1525784 4-Apr-2016 13:59

May consider incremental and sync. My concern with incremental is that it is dependent on the backup software and if anything is wrong with the backup file then the whole thing cannot be opened but I do get the incremental versions. One benefit of sync is that I can plug it into another other computer and read it.

Just out of interest with RAID 0 if a HD fails am I able to add a new one or a newer one and reload the Windows Image on it? Or is the different in HDs requires me to install everything?

hio77

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#1525792 4-Apr-2016 14:31

rayonline:

May consider incremental and sync. My concern with incremental is that it is dependent on the backup software and if anything is wrong with the backup file then the whole thing cannot be opened but I do get the incremental versions. One benefit of sync is that I can plug it into another other computer and read it.

Just out of interest with RAID 0 if a HD fails am I able to add a new one or a newer one and reload the Windows Image on it? Or is the different in HDs requires me to install everything?

RAID0 is striped. if one disk goes you loose the lot.

were you thinking of RAID 1? Mirror mode?

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rayonline

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#1525795 4-Apr-2016 14:42

hio77:

rayonline:

May consider incremental and sync. My concern with incremental is that it is dependent on the backup software and if anything is wrong with the backup file then the whole thing cannot be opened but I do get the incremental versions. One benefit of sync is that I can plug it into another other computer and read it.

Just out of interest with RAID 0 if a HD fails am I able to add a new one or a newer one and reload the Windows Image on it? Or is the different in HDs requires me to install everything?

RAID0 is striped. if one disk goes you loose the lot.

were you thinking of RAID 1? Mirror mode?

I know what is RAID 1.

With RAID 0 Striped. Yes if one HD fails I lose the lot. If I pull out the failed HD and put in the same HD or a newer / larger one as time goes on. Am I able to to grab my Windows image and reload it? Or is it the hardware is different do I have recreate the RAID, reinstall the software?

timmmay

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#1525861 4-Apr-2016 16:20

Raid0 you can't replace one drive afaik. If you lose a disk you probably have to restore from backups.

Just have os on ssd, buy a 3TB drive for data and another for backup.

Athlonite

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#1525921 4-Apr-2016 17:49

timmmay: Raid0 you can't replace one drive afaik. If you lose a disk you probably have to restore from backups.

Just have os on ssd, buy a 3TB drive for data and another for backup.

You can replace 1 HDD in a failed Raid0 array but not with a newer bigger disk (well you can but you'll loose out on the extra space on the bigger HDD also not recommended for a few other reasons aswell) and you'll need to remake the array and restore any data you want from backups luckily I've only ever had 1 HDD in a raid0 array go poo in 10 years and that was an very old WD800JB (80GB) HDD

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rayonline

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#1525927 4-Apr-2016 17:57

Backup includes the system image? Not just individual files.

Just curious to know. Yes the 3TB are affordable. I quite like to have a internal backup too cos you probably that more often than the externals or schedule it in.

Those who like RAID 0. If they're backed up what's the fuss .... People own numerous drives in all they don't fail that often......

richms

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#1525934 4-Apr-2016 18:11

Why not just use crashplan or some other cloud service?

Richard rich.ms

rayonline

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#1525951 4-Apr-2016 19:10

Cloud was be additional if I get that but I like to have all my files locally than to download all the GBs. I use Adobe Lightroom with my photos.

Ragnor

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#1526625 6-Apr-2016 01:05

A modern 3TB is about $160 and will be a decent amount faster (due to platter size) than your current 10 year old 500GB and way better $ per GB than buying a new 500GB for around $80.

I don't think raiding your current 500GB and a new one is worthwhile in this case.

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