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Does software RAID 1 (mirroring) in Windows 7 improve read speeds?

I'd like to set up RAID 1 to help protect my important documents (yes, yes, I know it's not a backup), but performance is also important to me. As I understand it, RAID 1 should theoretically be able to improve my read speeds by n times, where n is the number of disks.

Is Windows 7 able to get this boost? I haven't been able to find out this information anywhere.

digitxp
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Rich
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3 Answers3

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I think this blog answers it best. It shows actual speed tests for raid 0 and raid 1 between a single disk, windows software raid, hardware raid, and fake raid.

http://kmwoley.com/blog/?p=429

UPDATE: A more recent forum had a post from someone who tested Windows software RAID showing that the read speed was much faster, but the write speed was slower. If that is true then Windows software RAID is utilizing both disks independently. I have not verified these results myself. See the posting by ColgateJr near the bottom:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/250390-32-does-raid-increase-read-speed

Brain2000
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Just tested, 2-120GB SSD on windows 10.

RAID 0 increased both read and write dramatically (non-raid read was 450MB/s, raid-0 read was 820MB/s). Raid 1, write speed is the same, read speed increased by almost half (non-raid read was 450MB/s, raid-1 read was 631MB/s).

Side Note: I know were're talking about raid-1, but for someone who's speed hungry and want raid-0, just remember that if something slightly goes wrong with one of the drives, your system is done (crashes). Consider a raid-5 setup if you want both speed and redundancy.

rluks
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Daniel
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Yes, theoretically it will increase the speed by n, because all n drives can access the same file at the same time. If you have 10 painters painting a room, theoretically, the work will go 10x faster than with one painter.

In reality, however, these 10 painters don't know how to work together. There's a ton of painting over and their styles don't match etc. Same with RAID1. Few operating systems have drivers that can utilize the benefits of RAID1 (I believe BSD may be the only remotely major one).

Conclusion: No, the software hasn't caught up yet. If you want speed and protection, you're better off buying one better drive than getting two crap drives, and perhaps investing in MozyHome.

digitxp
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