Up to10%cash back  Standard Hardware RAID products only protect you from losing files when disks fail. SoftRAID does more by constantly checking your disks and warning you in advance — before a disk fails — giving you time to replace bad disks, saving precious files and data. If you would like to use software raid on your Mac, this is the package to get.

• Hardware Vs Software Raid Macbook Pro
• Hardware Vs Software Raid Machine
• Hardware Raid 1
• Hardware Vs Software Raid Mac Pro

1. With software RAID your data can be split across different enclosures for complete redundancy - one enclosure can completely stop working and your data is still ok. With hardware RAID, if the enclosure fails, you can lose all your data. With cheaper hardware RAID you can also lose data if.
2. Mar 21, 2008  The biggest positive for hardware RAID is the OS is presented the array as one disk. It doesn't realize there is more than one disk. This allows the RAID adapter to deal with bad sectors and the best way to write data and read data. In other RAID configs it also allows for the array to be rebuilt with less of a performance hit on the OS.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017 by Mikey Anderson

In this episode of Storage Board, we’ll take a look at RAID data storage and find out how it works.

Video transcript

Hi, I’m Mikey from Ontrack data recovery and welcome to Storage Board! In this episode we’re going to looking at RAID systems – what they are and how they work – but before we go any further, let’s define exactly what RAID stands for.

Defining RAID

RAID stands for the Redundant Array of Independent Disks and it is a method of data storage where you can distribute or spread data across multiple disks, all with the aim of increasing performance and reliability.

It is no surprise then that organizations are the top users of RAID systems due to the increase in reliability; a concept that has been around for 30 years, and you don’t have to be a company to use it – you could be an individual, perhaps working on video editing or music production. It is used not only to increase performance and reliability over using a single drive, but also to increase volume sizes, which is why it is favored by organizations so much.

Hardware vs. software RAID

There are two main ways of setting up your RAID system; first, there is a hardware setup; it involves having your host computer (or it could be a server), and a RAID controller in between, which in turn, controls the RAID system itself. In a hardware setup, the RAID controller is responsible for everything to do with RAID; the reading and writing of data, plus where it is stored and what drives it gets written to. The host operating system has no knowledge of the fact that there are multiple drives within the RAID system and sees it all as one logical unit. In a software RAID array it is slightly different; the RAID controller is implemented with the operating system, which has a bit of a decrease in performance as the OS is then doing multiple things at once (as there’s no separate hardware RAID controller).

Before we go onto RAID levels and exactly how they work in practice, we’re going to take a look at some key terms to find out what these RAID systems are.

Key terms

First, there is ‘parity’. Parity is a very important concept within RAID. It is a way of distributing data across multiple drives to aid with load distribution and the recovery of data if something were to go wrong.

Next, we have ‘redundancy’, which in a computer science sense, is the duplication of critical components, so if one was to fail then the whole system does not go down with it. In the case of RAID systems, these components are the drives. We’ll go into more detail on that again shortly.

The other two really key concepts in RAID are ‘mirroring’ and ‘striping’. Mirroring is quite like what it says on the tin; it’s mirroring data from one drive to another, which replicates the exact same information so it can be recovered if something were to go wrong.

Then we have striping, which is when data is written sequentially across multiple disks and we’ll check out how that works in a moment within a ‘RAID 0’ setup.

Before we do that, it is worth mentioning that there are many different RAID levels out there. We’ve just picked four for the purpose of this video, but for example, if you are a company with custom applications or databases, you may want to create your own RAID level depending on what your exact needs are. Levels go from RAID 0 all the way up to RAID 61 and beyond, but there are also many other nested or custom levels. The ones we will look at here are the four most basic levels.

RAID 0

With a RAID 0 setup, there must be at least two drives using the concept of striping. As you can see, the data is striped across the two disks, which is fantastic in terms of read and write performance over a single disk. However, it is not great in terms of redundancy. This is because if one of those drives were to fail (let’s say drive 1 in this case), that data is not replicated anywhere else, which will cause some headaches as there’s nowhere to get it back from.

RAID 1

RAID 1 is our next level, which takes the concept of mirroring that we looked at earlier. Again, there are two drives in this setup, and it is mirroring the data from the first drive onto the second drive. This means that if drive 1 were to fail in this RAID configuration, you would be able to restore the data with no issues (as the same data is on drive 2). It adds redundancy and data security and is the lowest form of redundancy available within RAID.

RAID 5

Now let’s move onto the more complex levels and take a look at RAID 5. This introduces the concept of parity – the distributing of data across multiple drives to aid recovery. You can see here that we have four drives in this setup (RAID 5 requires at least three drives) and you can see the parity is highlighted here in red. If one drive were to fail - let’s say drive 4 – the data can be rebuilt using the parity from the other drives (the parity in this RAID 5 takes up the space of one drive in total and it can therefore tolerate one drive failure).

With RAID 5, you can go one step further and configure a fifth drive: a ‘hot spare’. This is an idle drive that sits within the system with no data written to it, but if one drive were to fail – let’s take drive 4 again – the hot spare (drive 5) would take the place of failed drive 4 and it would be written based on the parity across the other drives and no data gets lost. What you can then do is take out the failed drive and insert a new one into the array, which then becomes your new hot spare. This is another good way of adding redundancy to prevent data loss.

RAID 6

Lastly, we have RAID 6, which takes the concept of parity one step further to ‘dual parity’. You can see here in the RAID 6 array, we have five drives (RAID 6 requires at least four drives) and you can also see the dual parity span across them, taking up the space of two drives in total. This allows for two drives to fail within the array before there’s a problem with getting the data back. This adds some sense of reliability and data security so that if two drives were to go down, with the dual parity across the other drives, you can rebuild the data within that array.

It’s worth mentioning that redundancy and parity are not the same as having backups; always remember to keep separate backups of your RAID system.

That sums up RAID in a nutshell – I hope you found this video useful and if you would like more information please check out your local Ontrack office online. Thanks for watching!

Do you store data on a RAID system? What level do you use and why? Let us know by commenting below.

Summary :

Do you know what hardware and software RAID is? What is the difference between software RAID and hardware RAID? Hardware vs software RAID which one is better? If you are trying to figure them out, probably this post of MiniTool is suitable for you.

To improve the performance, reliability, and capacity of your hard disk, the Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) is created. It is a data storage virtualization technology that can virtualize multiple independent hard disk drives into one or more arrays.

To analyze hardware vs software RAID, it is inevitable to talk about the dynamic volume. As you might know, the data on dynamic volume can be managed either by dedicated computer hardware or software.

Implementing RAID needs to use either hardware RAID (special controller) or software RAID (an operating system driver). But a great many people are unclear about their differences. So, the following part will discuss the hardware vs software RAID to help you make a decision.

What are the differences between 10000 rpm HDD VS. SSD. How to upgrade your HDD to SSD without any data loss? Today’s article will tell you all the answers.

What Is Hardware RAID

Hardware RAID is a dedicated processing system that can be done completely on a separate RAID card/cabinet or the motherboard. With the hardware RAID setup, your hard drive can connect to a RAID controller card that is inserted in a fast PCle slot in a motherboard.

Hardware RAID controller can help you improve the performance since the processing is handled by the RAID card instead of the server. The hardware RAID card can work effectively in larger servers as well as on a desktop computer. In addition, writing backups and restoring data will produce less strain when using the hardware RAID card.

Based on the hardware system, the RAID subsystem can be managed independently from the host and only one single disk is provided for the host by per RAID array. For example, a hardware RAID device can connect to a SCSI controller and present the RAID array as a single SCSI drive.

You may have an overall understanding of hardware RAID. What is software RAID? Please keep reading.

What Is Software RAID

To compare software RAID vs hardware RAID, it’s also necessary to figure out what software RAID is. When your storage drives are directly connected to the server’s motherboard without a RAID controller, the RAID configuration will be managed by the utility software in the operating system. Here this process is referred to as the software RAID setup.

Software RAID setup is a cheaper choice compared with a hardware RAID controller. You are restricted to the RAID levels that your OS can support. In other words, software RAID has some limitations especially in terms of the configuration options.

Right now, you may have a preliminary impression of hardware vs software RAID according to the above information. Next, we will discuss the differences between software RAID and hardware RAID in detail.

mSATA and M.2 hard drive are both popular storage devices on the market. What’s the difference between mSATA and M.2? You can get the answer from the post.

Hardware VS Software RAID

The core of a RAID system is the controller, which plays an important role in distributing data to and from the hard drives that make up the RAID array. There are 2 types of RAID controllers including hardware-based and software-based.

So, the detailed information of hardware RAID vs software RAID will be analyzed based on the RAID controllers. To give you a better understanding, we will discuss the aspects of affordability, performance, and flexibility.

Affordability

As mentioned above, the software RAID controller is more affordable than the hardware RAID controller. In terms of affordability, you can refer to the form below to overview their differences.

Hardware Vs Software Raid Macbook Pro

The RAID controller uses the computing power of your PC to control the way that the data is read or written to the enclosure. Since the hardware RAID enclosures can make full use of the standard interface chipsets, the manufacturing and design costs are relatively high.

But the software RAID controllers may be as low as zero since most basic RAID levels are included in many operating systems.

Performance

In general, the more complex your RAID configuration is, the more likely the performance will be affected. Compared with the hardware-based RAID systems, the software-based RAID systems are more likely to encounter a performance issue.

Software-based systems usually can perform adequately for 3 basic RAID levels including RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 10. However, when using more complex RAID levels, software-based RAID programs may impact the performance of the RAID system and the overall performance of your computer.

In addition, the hardware-based RAID systems will be quicker than software-based systems when rebuilding the mirrored RAID data. Here’s a form about the differences between hardware and software RAID systems in terms of performance.

Flexibility

Apart from the affordability and performance, flexibility is also one aspect of hardware vs software RAID. The software-based RAID controllers are designed with the most flexibility in configuring the way that you use each drive in an enclosure.

In an enclosure with 4 drives, you’re allowed to configure 3 drives as a striped array for performance and one large drive for backup. Well, you can also configure the 4 drives as 2 independent arrays, a mirrored volume for gaming files, and a striped volume for video editing.

In other words, you can configure the 4 drives in an enclosure based on your needs. However, the hardware-based RAID systems work a single disk in the host operating system.

Impact on Computer Performance

The differences between hardware and software RAID also have an important impact on computer performance.

Hardware Vs Software Raid Machine

With a software-based RAID controller, one or more CPU cores, as well as RAM could impact other processes that are running on your computer. The extent of the software RAID controller’s impact depends on the RAID level in use and the number of drives that makes up the RAID array.

However, if you are using an external hardware-based RAID enclosure, it will produce no impact on the processor or RAM on the host computer.

Many people don't know how to partition RAID 5 with reliable software. Read this post to see how to manage RAID with the best dynamic manger Minitool Partition Wizard.

Software RAID VS Hardware RAID: Which Is Better?

According to the above information, you may have an overall understanding of software RAID vs hardware RAID. Here comes a question – software vs hardware RAID which one is better?

Hardware Raid 1

Based on the data backup, the types of RAID will differ from system to system. Usually, it’s more common to see hardware RAID in Windows Server environments. This is because its advantages can be better realized in the Server.

Whereas software RAID is more prevalent in open-source server systems where its high flexibility and comparatively low cost can be realized better.

To give you an intuitive understanding, the pros and cons of hardware RAID vs software RAID are summarized in the form below:

Software RAID VS Hardware RAID: which is better? Now, I believe that you already have known the answer. No matter you choose software or hardware RAID, you need to manage the RAID drives to get the best performance. How to manage them effectively? Please keep reading the following part.

How to Manage Your RAID Drives Effectively

Although Windows offers a built-in tool (Disk Management) to manage your RAID drives, some features are not available. For example, resizing and extending volume are restricted in some situations. At this time, you need a professional and effective tool to do these works.

Here it’s highly recommended that you choose MiniTool Partition Wizard Server Edition. This powerful software can help you manage RAID partitions ranging from RAID 0 to RAID 6, and other forms like RAID 10 and RAID 50.

Apart from the move/resize feature, this powerful software boasts many other features. It can help you upgrade hard disk, convert MBR to GPT disk, change cluster size without data loss, etc.

Hardware Vs Software Raid Mac Pro

If you are limited to resize your volume, you can utilize this program to move or resize the volume easily. Here’s how to do that:

Step 1. Launch this tool to get its main interface, and then select the RAID partition that you want to manage and click on the Move/Resize Volume feature on the left pane.

Step 2. Then you can drag the handle leftward or rightward to resize the volume. If you want to move the volume to the unallocated space, just move the whole handle to change the location. After specifying the volume, click on OK to save the changes.

Step 3. Click on Apply on the upper left corner to execute the operation. After that, you will be asked to restart your computer. You just need to follow the prompt.

What’s Your Opinion

Here comes the end of the post. Today we mainly focus on the software RAID vs hardware RAID. If you have any questions, please send us an e-mail via [email protected]. We also appreciate any ideas left in the comment area.

Hardware VS Software RAID FAQ