RAID 0 and recovery partition

Well, I'm very tempted to do RAID 0. So far the performance in run-of-the-mill work tasks is quite satisfactory, but the long times to enter and return from hibernation with 4GB is bugging me. From what I understand, going to RAID 0 would destroy all partitions on the disks, including the hidden recovery partition. Will the recovery disk(s) restore this partition? If not, is there a way to copy the hidden partition and then replace it after converting to RAID 0?

 

To answer part of the question, yes raid will remove the recovery partition. I do not think the recovery disk can restore it.

The only way to copy it is to get some imaging software that can cloan partitions and just copy it... I myself didnt care about the loss of it. I use Vista Ultimate anyway so it was of no use, and all the drivers and software are outdated and bugged on it anyway which causes you to need to update everything anyway.

The next issue is the recovery option may not even work on raid even if you got a copy of the partition and restored it after you setup raid... The intresting thing is the raid bios manager has a spot in it to create a recovery partition but I didnt mess with it and am not sure what it is...

I would just take the extra speed and space and call it a day, than again I already did soo..

 

By the way any suggestions on how to go about with setting up a RAID o on a HP dv7? A step by step guide or something for a complete noob? desperately need help on this.

 

Risks of data loss with RAID0 outweight its benefits.

You cannot raid a dv7 because doesnt come with a hardware RAID controller, it can only do software RAID which is inefficiently terrible.

 

And which is the the best inefficently terrible software available? Will i have to do a complete install of the OS even in this case?

 

You cant do software raid 0 that I know of because it would haev to be something to manage it outside of windows before windows even boots....

I take that back, you CAN do it but not to the boot drive... You can only software mirror the boot drive, everything else has to be done to non-boot drive unless its hardware raid.

 

Oh!so there is no point in software raiding it then?

 

On if you did raid 1 for hardware failure protection, but that has some overhead and will slow you down a bit.

Otherwise no, no point doing software raid on a desktop... It would only be usefull on a server at that point to use as a data drive with raid 5 or something like that...

 

Hmmm...any idea of the typical failure rate? I haven't had any bad experiences with my desktop drives, but I guess notebook drives would be more susceptible due to increased vibration and temperatures?

 

Thats not an answer anyone can give you. It just depends on the drive and conditions... The reason for the risk is because if one drive fails all data is lost because each file is split in half across the two drives... It just means you have 2x the risk of data loss. If you only had one drive not doing raid you just risk that drive failing and data loss.

With Raid 0 you have two drives and either one failing causes data loss so thats why its more of a risk...

If you keep good backups than its not a big deal... I use Raid0 on my desktop and notebook...

Yes notebook failure rate is a tad higher because like you said, it also will worsen battery life a tad because both drivers will always be active instead of just the one with your data, but not enough to really bother mention.

 

Okay, thanks for the info. I think I will go ahead and do Raid, since I plan to get an eSata external HDD at some point and do backups. I haven't really started doing any work on it anyhow.

But first I am going to benchmark the notebook thoroughly so I can compare it after enabling Raid, especially in terms of battery life. This might be helpful for other people to weigh the pros and cons.

 

I hate the myth of Raid 0 equals lost of information. I have been running raids for a long time and I have yet had a crash. Now it's not to say if you loose your 1 HD you loose all of your files that is true but your chances of loosing one HD as just the same as running one HD. Now if you want to get technical drives work LESS on a RAID 0 then they do solo, so if anything your solo HD will fail sooner then in a RAID 0 due to wear and tear. Now the benefits of a RAID are LOADING times. I tell you this much, when I start working on someone else computer I can tell right away Im not on a RAID 0. Thats one of the reasons I picked G50vt-A2 was due to it being able to support RAID. Thats my 2 cents.