does Windows benefit from RAID-5?

[Kingfish999]

i currently have a RAID 1 setup for my main storage HDDs because i hate losing data. im currently replacing both my HDDs because they are old and one is detecting issues (exactly why i have RAID 1) but before i do that, im considering getting a 3rd HDD for RAID 5.

in a perfect world, RAID 1 should have the same write speed as 1 HDD but nearly double read speed because it can read data from both drives simultaneously. but from my understanding, Windows does not utilize this so read speed is the same as 1 drive and thee is no actual performance increase. this got me to thinking about RAID-5. the write and read speed of RAID-5 should be about near RAID-0 but with an extra drive. but if Windows doesn't benefit from RAID 1, will it also not benefit from RAID 5?

 

[trents]

I could be wrong but I'm not sure it's true that even in theory RAID 1 reads would be double what they would be with a single hard drive. Wouldn't that require striping? I can tell you that RAID 0 gives better performance than RAID 1. But of course there is no redundancy and double the risk of volume failure with RAID 0. I don't think it is really a Windows issue.

You do realize that RAID is not a true backup solution don't you? RAID 0 and up are great insurance for disk hardware failure but do nothing to protect you from corrupted system files that might prevent even being able to boot up. If you don't have a data backup plan in place in addition to your RAID I would suggest you do so unless you don't have any data you mind losing.

 

[Kingfish999]

the idea if RAID 1 having double read speed is that since you have 2 HDDs with the same info. you could read the info as if it was stripped like RAID 0. one drive reads A1, the other drive reads B1. then the first drive could read C1 while the other does D1. therefor it COULD read twice as fast.



but from some googleing, ive read that Windows does not do this, instead it jsut uses whichever HDD is available first so there is no speed boost.

RAID1 can be just as fast as RAID0 as for reading, because it could read in the very same way as RAID0's do. Better yet, since all disks contain all data, there is no requirement anymore to read from a specific disk; as both disks contain the same data striping can be done more efficiently.

So, RAID1 should be faster than RAID0 for random read, and at least the same as for sequential read. Unfortunately, only UNIX RAID drivers like geom_mirror implement things like load balancing and round robin algoritms on the RAID1 layer.

Even Areca hardware RAID doesn't profit alot from RAID1. And all onboard-RAID do not employ any optimizations for RAID1, causing it to slowdown to the speed of a single disk. Perhaps Intel ICHxR drivers will be a little better, but i doubt they can profit from RAID1 potential as the GEOM storage layer does in the FreeBSD operating system.

So short answer: no, Windows does not offer any advanced storage technology, like Linux/BSD do.

also i do have a backup for when the fit hits the shan but it does specific things not the whole system. mainly i use RAID 1 because my biggest failure is HDD getting old and failing.

 

[UltraTaco]

Why nt ssd? If you are looking for performance boost..

 

[Kingfish999]

i have a SSD. just upgraded my 250GB to a 500GB because it nearly full. but thats jsut my boot drive and most used programs. i have my HDDs for general storage. i dont need it to be lightning fast like an SSD, im much prefer redundancy than speed. while SSD are now pretty reliable, i have had 2 suddenly fail and no way to recover

a 2TB SSD still cost a good chunk. 280$ for an Evo 860, but then i would lose my redundancy, my backup not big enough for the whole drive. with RAID 1 + backing up crucial info, i have much less chance of loosing data. a 2tb WD Black HDD is 60$ each. but if i already have a RAID 1 setup, im jsut curious if adding another HDD to make it RAID 5 would be worth it in the end. or if there will be no gain due to Windows not utilizing the advantage.

my current read/write speeds of my new HDDs not in RAID 1 yet are about average for an HDD but pretty lame by SDD speeds. 138mbps write/ 147mbps. faster than my old 1TB drives they replaced. when the RAID finishes rebuilding ill retest it afterwards and see if there was any increase/decrease. if it increases a good portion, ill think about doing RAID 5

 

[Kingfish999]

same HDD in RAID-1. slightly less speed than standalone, at least it isnt a huge loss. Windows 7 defiantly does not seem to benefit from hardware RAID-1.

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

I have a 2 bay external raid case, it is set up as raid 1, when I wright to the raid, date is written to both drives at the same time, but when I read from the raid, only 1 drive is active.
So no, read speeds is not faster than reading from 1 drive. I'm using Win 10 so I don't know how Linux would do things.

 

[petteyg359]

As an opinionated non-expert...

For the same number of disks, RAID 1 or 10 is always better than 5 or 6. RAID 1/10 can continue in a degraded array without corruption after losing more drives than RAID 5/6, and you don't have to spend any processing power on parity calculation.

 

[freakdiablo]

I used a RAID5 array before getting this WD Red, and one thing I haven't seen mentioned is the amount of overhead. I was using my mobo's onboard RAID controller and it didn't work out too well, slowing to a crawl over time. If I was booting off of it I would have found myself shirtless and wearing purple shorts every time I turned my PC on. When you factor in a decent controller you're better off grabbing a decent SSD.

Edit: Just realized this is the parity calcs petteyg mentioned

 

[Hotrod2go]

OP, the way storage costs are now with SSDs & even NVMe M.2 drives, I'd be seriously considering moving to that type of tech asap.

Obviously, you'll get better I/O performance & quieter operation.

I don't know about your budget & I'm no expert on X79 platform (presuming its the rig in your sig), but as an "educated" guess I suppose your mobo has Sata 3 ports you could connect lge capacity SSDs

Relying on trad mechanical HDD are a thing of the past. Too many moving parts to go wrong imo.

 

[quailisotope]

If you are looking for performance boost why don't you try ssd.

 

[wagex]

If you are looking for performance boost why don't you try ssd.

That is what everyone else has already suggested.

and to everyone suggesting using SSD's for storage... that stuff gets expensive, especially when you have a lot of data. I don't even have that much compared to a lot of people and I have over 10TB of data at any given time on my drives.

 

[freeagent]

That is what everyone else has already suggested.

and to everyone suggesting using SSD's for storage... that stuff gets expensive, especially when you have a lot of data. I don't even have that much compared to a lot of people and I have over 10TB of data at any given time on my drives.

I looked the other day, and 1TB hdd's were just a few dollars less than a 1TB hdd. I just looked at Newegg.ca and of course there is a sale on now. But a few days ago a TB ssd was only like 20 bucks more than a wd black. If prices keep dropping I'm probably going to just replace my spinners. I don't need 10TB, 3TB works for me just fine. Maybe four..

 

[wagex]

I looked the other day, and 1TB hdd's were just a few dollars less than a 1TB hdd. I just looked at Newegg.ca and of course there is a sale on now. But a few days ago a TB ssd was only like 20 bucks more than a wd black. If prices keep dropping I'm probably going to just replace my spinners. I don't need 10TB, 3TB works for me just fine. Maybe four..

1TB spinners are obsolete (likely hence the price), honestly surprised they still sell them. When you buy bigger drives the cost per TB goes way down. a 4TB spinner is like $100 ($25 per TB). a 1TB SSD is $90-$120... per TB so $400 for 4tb or $100 pretty drastic difference for storage only.

 

[freeagent]

1TB spinners are obsolete (likely hence the price), honestly surprised they still sell them. When you buy bigger drives the cost per TB goes way down. a 4TB spinner is like $100 ($25 per TB). a 1TB SSD is $90-$120... per TB so $400 for 4tb or $100 pretty drastic difference for storage only.

Well.. since you put it like that..