ASRock Super Alloy, - XXL Aluminum Alloy Heatsink, - Premium Alloy Choke (Reduces 70% core loss compared to iron powder choke), - NexFET™ MOSFET, - Nichicon 12K Platinum Caps (100% Japan made high quality conductive polymer capacitors), - Sapphire Black PCB; OC Formula Kit, » OC Formula Power Kit - 8 Power Phase design, Digi Power, » OC Formula Connector Kit - Hi-Density Power Connector (8. SoftRAID 5.6.3 – High-quality RAID management. SoftRAID allows you to create and manage disk arrays to increase performance and reliability. SoftRAID allows the user to create and manage RAID 4 and 5 volumes, RAID 1+0, and RAID 1 (Mirror) and RAID 0 (Stripe) volumes.
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (Independent) Disks.
On most situations you will be using one of the following four levels of RAIDs.
At OWC, we pride ourselves in the quality of our software and the excellent support we give our customers. Our goal is that you never have to worry about SoftRAID, that it runs in the background and doesn't interfere with your work until one of your disks starts to have problems. SoftRAID 5.6.1 Size: SoftRAID allows you to create and manage disk arrays to increase performance and reliability. SoftRAID allows the user to create and manage RAID 4 and 5 volumes, RAID 1+0, and RAID 1 (Mirror) and RAID 0 (Stripe) volumes. SoftRAID also provides 'predictive disk failure', where users are alerted to potential disk failures.
- RAID 0
- RAID 1
- RAID 5
- RAID 10 (also known as RAID 1+0)
This article explains the main difference between these raid levels along with an easy to understand diagram.
In all the diagrams mentioned below:
- A, B, C, D, E and F – represents blocks
- p1, p2, and p3 – represents parity
RAID LEVEL 0
Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 0.
- Minimum 2 disks.
- Excellent performance ( as blocks are striped ).
- No redundancy ( no mirror, no parity ).
- Don't use this for any critical system.
RAID LEVEL 1
Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 1.
- Minimum 2 disks.
- Good performance ( no striping. no parity ).
- Excellent redundancy ( as blocks are mirrored ).
RAID LEVEL 5
Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 5.
- Minimum 3 disks.
- Good performance ( as blocks are striped ).
- Good redundancy ( distributed parity ).
- Best cost effective option providing both performance and redundancy. Use this for DB that is heavily read oriented. Write operations will be slow.
RAID LEVEL 10
Softraid 5
Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 10.
- Minimum 4 disks.
- This is also called as 'stripe of mirrors'
- Excellent redundancy ( as blocks are mirrored )
- Excellent performance ( as blocks are striped )
- If you can afford the dollar, this is the BEST option for any mission critical applications (especially databases).
Additional RAID Tutorials:
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like..
Next post: UNIX ar Examples: How To Create, View, Extract, Modify C Archive Files (*.a)
Previous post: Snort: 5 Steps to Install and Configure Snort on Linux
Up until Windows 8, software RAID in Windows was a mess. Windows 7 has arbitrary restrictions on the available RAID levels, and it was impossible to create a Level 5 RAID without Windows Server. Fortunately, it is easy to build a software RAID 5 in Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. We just need a couple of disks, and we will have the extra security of RAID in no time.
Unblock any international website, browse anonymously, and download movies and Mp3 with complete safety with CyberGhost, just for $2.75 per month:
We can create both level 1 and level 5 RAID in Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, depending on the number of hard drives we have at our disposal. We will need two drives for RAID 1 and three or more drives for RAID 5.
However, with software RAID 5 it's impossible to have the operating system on the RAID. We can only use it for storage.
Table of Contents
- How to create a software RAID 5 in Windows 10 and 8.1
- What happens when a drive on the RAID fails
How to create a software RAID 5 in Windows 10 and 8.1
To create a software RAID 5, we need at least three hard drives of the same capacity, apart from the OS drive. All three disks need to be unformatted.
We can build a RAID with drives of unequal size, but then the smaller disk will dictate the array's total capacity.
Making sure our drives are unformatted
A simple way to check if the drives are unformatted is through the Disk Management Console. We can open it by pressing the Windows key + R, and on the Run window type:
All three drives we will use for the RAID need to be Unallocated.
If any of the drives has a partition, we need to back up any data on it, then right-click and select 'Delete Volume.'
After that, we won't be needing the Disk Management console anymore; we can close it.
Managing Storage Spaces
We go to the Start Screen (Windows 8.1) or Start Menu (Windows 10) and start typing 'storage spaces.' The 'Search' dialogue will automatically come up, and we select the relevant option.
On the Storage Spaces window, we select the only option, 'Create a new pool and storage space.'
The system will automatically detect the unformatted drives and select them.
If we want, we can change the name, drive letter, or file system for the storage space. To create a software RAID 5, on resiliency type we select 'Parity.'
On 'Size,' we see the size of the storage space. To calculate the array's capacity, we just need to take the smallest disk's capacity and multiply it by the number of drives minus one.
With three 1TB HDDs, it is 1*(3-1) = 2TB array.
Softraid Raid 10
If we had three 1TB drives and one 500GB drive for the array, the array's capacity would have been 500*(4-1)=1500GB.
After we click the Create storage space button, our software RAID 5 is ready.
On the 'This PC' folder, we will see it as one disk.
How to move our personal folders on the software RAID
The primary reason to create a software RAID 5 is for the added data security. When any of the three disks fails, we will still have access to all the data; nothing will be lost.
So, it makes sense to have our personal folders on the RAID. Documents, Pictures, Music, even the Desktop will be much safer there than on the single Windows disk.
Moving those folders is easy. We just need to go to Local Disk C: -> Users -> (our username) - filod, in the example.
There, we Ctrl+click to select some of our personal folders or select them all with Ctrl+A. Then, we right-click on one of the selected folders and click on 'Cut.'
Caution! If the hidden folder AppData is visible on your system, do not select that folder. It's not a folder that we can move to the RAID.
After we cut our important folders, we right-click on the software RAID 5 and select 'Paste.'
Now, whatever we save on the Desktop and in our Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, etc. folders will be safe on the RAID.
What happens when a drive on the RAID fails
If When one of the drives fails, the rest of the drives give us full access to our data. If, however, a second drive fails before we replaced the first drive, all the files on the RAID will be irretrievably lost.
Strangely, in the case of a disk failure, both Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 take their time to report that something is wrong.
Softraid Raid 6
A few minutes after we boot the PC, Windows 8.1 will show the Action Center flag, with a nonchalant 'Check Storage Spaces for issues' message.
It wouldn't hurt if it had a bit more urgency.
Windows 10 does it slightly better, by adding an exclamation mark on the notification. It still takes a couple of minutes to show up after boot, though, and some Windows 10 users don't check the Action Center notifications often.
The best warning system is if we had moved the Desktop folder to the RAID. We will know that something is wrong right at boot time.
The array won't appear when Windows boots...
...but it will appear a few seconds later.
Our data is still safe and readily accessible with the rest of the disks working.
In case we get the notification or the message that desktop isn't accessible, we need to go immediately to 'Manage Storage Spaces.'
There, we will get the warning that a drive is gone, and we have reduced resiliency.
How to rebuild the software RAID 5
The first thing we must do when we have a drive failure is to completely backup all the data in the RAID, preferably on an external hard drive. Remember, if a second drive fails, all the array data is gone for good.
Softraid 5 8 1 – High Quality Raid Management System
After the backup and after we have bought and installed a replacement drive, at the 'Manage Storage Spaces' window we click on 'Change settings'...
...and then 'Add drives.'
The system will recognize the new drive, provided it is unformatted.
After we have added the drive, we remove the one that crashed from the RAID.
That's it. Now the software RAID 5 is healthy again and can withstand a single disk failure.
Is software RAID 5 for you?
HDDs are pretty inexpensive nowadays, even for a couple of Terabytes of capacity. Getting two or three of them to create a RAID array wouldn't make a big dent in our budget.
Will you consider building a Software RAID 5 on Windows 8.1 or Windows 10? Or do you find it wasteful, and prefer an external hard drive or cloud backup? Let us know in the comments below.
Support PCsteps
Do you want to support PCsteps, so we can post high quality articles throughout the week?
You can like our Facebook page, share this post with your friends, and select our affiliate links for your purchases on Amazon.com or Newegg.
If you prefer your purchases from China, we are affiliated with the largest international e-shops:
