Where's the Intel Tool in Windows 8.1?
I have a RAID 5 array (Intel RST) that is currently provisioning on my new Windows 8.1 machine.
In previous versions of Windows, there was a tool that would give you the status of the array (warn you that a drive failed and it is degraded, give you the initialization status, etc..)
I cannot find this in windows 8.1, and a I cannot find a download from Intel that is compatible with Windows 8.1.
How do I see the status of my array in Windows 8.1?
In previous versions of Windows, there was a tool that would give you the status of the array (warn you that a drive failed and it is degraded, give you the initialization status, etc..)
I cannot find this in windows 8.1, and a I cannot find a download from Intel that is compatible with Windows 8.1.
How do I see the status of my array in Windows 8.1?
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Intel Matrix is software RAID ,not hardware.
It's just XOR on a chip and basically just marketing hype.
If you are running virtual machines on it ,it's just horrific in terms of performance.
If you lose a drive ,because it is software ,your system will take a very long time to rebuild.
There are many posts on this site from Intel fake RAID issues.
Things like doing a bare metal restore to fake RAID from Acronis or other products is not very well supported.
If ,you are using desktop drives (which I'm just guessing you are),the ECC and disk recovery mechanisms are not tweaked for RAID 5.
Most RAID 5 software will mark a drive bad if it doesn't respond with in 7 seconds or so.
Desktop drives can take up to 30 seconds to respond if they hit a bad sector and try to recover it.
Enterprise drives are tweaked for 7 seconds and have better ECC.
If ,while you are doing a rebuild, another disk times out,your array is toast.
MS storage spaces is kind of a ZFS type thing with storage pools and such.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/storage-spaces-explained-a-great-feature-when-it-works/
It's just XOR on a chip and basically just marketing hype.
If you are running virtual machines on it ,it's just horrific in terms of performance.
If you lose a drive ,because it is software ,your system will take a very long time to rebuild.
There are many posts on this site from Intel fake RAID issues.
Things like doing a bare metal restore to fake RAID from Acronis or other products is not very well supported.
If ,you are using desktop drives (which I'm just guessing you are),the ECC and disk recovery mechanisms are not tweaked for RAID 5.
Most RAID 5 software will mark a drive bad if it doesn't respond with in 7 seconds or so.
Desktop drives can take up to 30 seconds to respond if they hit a bad sector and try to recover it.
Enterprise drives are tweaked for 7 seconds and have better ECC.
If ,while you are doing a rebuild, another disk times out,your array is toast.
MS storage spaces is kind of a ZFS type thing with storage pools and such.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/storage-spaces-explained-a-great-feature-when-it-works/
ASKER
This probably explains why it is taking 24 hours to copy 100GB of data. The performance is AWFUL. (The software RAID on Linux is fast, reliable, and works with imaging... It transferred 5TB in around 18 hours - working right at the speed of the bus on that machine). I guess I am a little spoiled... I was expecting it to perform similarly).
For servers, I use hardware RAID (HP i400's I think). For these workstations; however, you're right, I am using desktop drives because the "I" in RAID = "inexpensive."
I am going to wipe this RAID array, and setup storage spaces, and let you know how it goes.
For servers, I use hardware RAID (HP i400's I think). For these workstations; however, you're right, I am using desktop drives because the "I" in RAID = "inexpensive."
I am going to wipe this RAID array, and setup storage spaces, and let you know how it goes.
ASKER
Oh... one last thing... what's the RAID 5 equivalent in storage spaces? (I assume I'll see it when I get in there... but never hurts to ask what to look for).
ASKER
I selected partiy storage, because it appeared to be the closest thing to RAID 5 with three drives. Copying the files now. It appears to be going faster already... we'll see...
Hi.
Let me clarify two items:
> In previous versions of Windows, there was a tool that would give you the status of the array (warn you that a drive failed...)
-No, there wasn't. That had always been a 3rd party utility, not built-in.
> I had intended to use the RAID 5 functions in Windows, but since I haven't used them in years, I found out they are no longer supported after Windows 2003.
-Windows 8 is the first Microsoft client OS to make software RAID5 possible (via "storage spaces"). Windows 2000 server was the first server OS making software RAID5 possible - since then, every server version supported it.
Let me clarify two items:
> In previous versions of Windows, there was a tool that would give you the status of the array (warn you that a drive failed...)
-No, there wasn't. That had always been a 3rd party utility, not built-in.
> I had intended to use the RAID 5 functions in Windows, but since I haven't used them in years, I found out they are no longer supported after Windows 2003.
-Windows 8 is the first Microsoft client OS to make software RAID5 possible (via "storage spaces"). Windows 2000 server was the first server OS making software RAID5 possible - since then, every server version supported it.
ASKER
The RAID array was EXTREMELY slow. I got frustrated waiting for it to copy (receive) all the data from backups, and killed it. Once I replaced it with the storage spaces setup, it was faster than the RAID array by a significant margin.
Very satisfied with storage spaces. Thank you.
Very satisfied with storage spaces. Thank you.
ASKER
RAID seems to be one of those holy wars where whatever you choose, someone will bad mouth it.
So my question is two fold:
1. Why is Intel Matrix a disaster waiting to happen?
2. What's the benefit of Storage Spaces over RAID?
Background on my questions above:
My first thought for "storage spaces" was that it was the Windows implementation of the Logical Volume Manager in Linux, which (to me) adds complexity without a real benefit.
Mostly, I uses Linux mdadm for software / OS based RAID on all my systems. I have lost drive after drive, and never a single byte of data.
I had intended to use the RAID 5 functions in Windows, but since I haven't used them in years, I found out they are no longer supported after Windows 2003. (Shows you how long I have not touched RAID on Windows).