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    RAID Different kinds of drives together

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by jeepman32, Aug 26, 2013.

  1. jeepman32

    jeepman32 Newbie

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    Hi,
    I was wondering if you could RAID a SATA III Drive with a mSATA III Drive. It will probably be a straight 'no', but I just wanted to check. (I am talking about striped or RAID 0 BTW)
    Thanks
     
    jeepman32, Aug 26, 2013
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  2. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Yes you can. You will be limited by size and performance of the smallest/slowest drive. All depends on if your BIOS supports it too.
     
    HTWingNut, Aug 26, 2013
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  3. Mr.Koala

    Mr.Koala Notebook Virtuoso

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    Hardware RAID or software RAID?

    For hardware RAID, it depends on the RAID chip and BIOS/UEFI.

    For software RAID, do whatever you like. You can even software RAID-0 asymmetrically on a SATA2/3 hybrid setup to get most from it.
     
    Mr.Koala, Aug 26, 2013
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  4. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    I highly recommend against software RAID. It's a good crutch if you need it, but the performance hit is noticeable and risk of failure increases considerably. Plus you can't boot off a software RAID partition because it's a dynamic disk and you can't boot off a dynamic disk.
     
    HTWingNut, Aug 27, 2013
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  5. Mr.Koala

    Mr.Koala Notebook Virtuoso

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    Unless you need high I/O throughput and high CPU load at the same time for some reason, it's not a big issue. Of course it depends on your CPU. A i7 would enjoy low utilization doing soft RAID, but a A4 may suffer.

    Not sure about this. What is the primary source of failure for software RAID?

    For Windows, yes (or possible but tricky). Otherwise no.
     
    Mr.Koala, Aug 27, 2013
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