Windows 10: What's the best solution for a reliable RAID 1 setup

I wonder if you could kindly assist with a recommendation of the most reliable Raid 1 mirroring setup, with current implementation by BIOS, an option of Windows 10 Pro, or using Storage Spaces in Windows.


The background is that my primary aim is to ensure a backup of my precious photograph collection and other user data that is kept on my hard drive. To that end, when I had my PC built four years ago I had it made with a 250Gb SSD C drive for Windows and two 3Tb hard disks set up with Raid 1 where I keep my data. I believe that the Raid was created within the BIOS but have no technical knowledge of how that was done or how to change it. But, twice when updating Windows it has corrupted my Raid settings. The most recent challenge was done last month or so when Widows 10 Home update screwed things up. I can’t accept this happening again and want to know the best solution for long term reliability of this mirroring of my data.



I recently also suffered a Corsair HX 750i PSU failure expensive item eventually replaced under warranty failure which corrupted my SSD so I took the option of adding a larger SSD and installing Windows 10 on that drive instead. My old SSD remains accessible but I’m not currently using it, and hope to get some stuff from it later when my system is stable again e.g. my internet favourites. It has however cost me many hours of reconfiguring and I’ve lost my iTunes playlists and other data for CD Rom based music manually imported into iTunes. I’m therefore quite fed up of working on my PC and just want reliability from a users perspective, which is what I ultimately wanted in the first place.



Currently, my BIOS is failing to launch Widows at each startup and occasionally seems to repair my C new SSD drive with Windows on it. But, I have to enter BIOS every PC startup and I choose to exit without making any changes whereupon Windows opens fine. My Raid is however broken in that what was my D drive comprising two hard disks has been changed to an F drive and is reported as one drive is fine with the other is offline, having a signature collision.



The Asus BIOS reports:

SATA Port 1 - Samsung EVO 250Gb my original Windows SSD

Sata Port 3 - hard drive one of my two raid disks

Sata Port 4 - Pioneer drive my Blu Ray writer

Sata Port 5 - hard drive my other raid hard drive

Sata port 6 - Apti my DVD player



Within Windows 10 the Computer Manager is reporting

Disk 0 - C drive my new 1 Tb SSD

Disk 1 - I drive my older 250 Gb SSD

Disk 2 - F drive one of my two hard drives which was previously labelled as the D drive

Disk 3 - offline as it has a signature collision with another drive this is my other hard drive which should be operating in Raid

DVD D: one of my optical drives

DVD E: the other optical drive



Before I got to this stage, within Windows I had noted that the drives were as follows within Windows file explorer:

C: 1Tb SSD

J: 250 Gb SSD

F: D Raid. I wanted to relabel this properly as the D drive again and not F drive as I have applications which look for data on the D drive but could no longer find it e.g. Adobe Lightroom. I could not relabel it in practice however as Windows would not let me, I suspect because of the offline nature of the Raid status.

D: Blu-Ray. I relabelled this as the G drive to make the D label available for the Raid drive.

E: DVD-RW. I relabelled this as the H drive to be next to the G drive.



What I need to occur is that the raid is repaired or replaced with another mirroring system such that both hard disks are operating together and then I can relabel it as the D drive again – shortcuts set up to D drive and my Adobe Lightroom catalogue refers to D drive as well. I looked in the Bios but was too unsure of what I was doing so left any changes well alone. I’m leaving it to my local PC shop to correct. The motherboard is an Asus Maximus HERO V111 and settings are far too complex for my understanding.



I’ve just updated my Windows 10 home edition to Windows 10 Professional in a computer magazine sales offer, largely to gain the option of using Windows itself to create a Raid 1 setup within Disk Manager as described at this YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nga6Nydy3M

In computer management / storage / disk management is now does give the option of mirroring a drive when selected which it did not in the Windows 10 home edition.



My local computer shop who I need to take the PC back to in order to sort out my BIOS has suggested that instead of creating a Raid in Windows as per above I should use the more modern method of using ‘Storage Spaces’ instead. I’ve not come across this before myself and my first foray into these pages found this post

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...e-spaces/e7eef034-d81c-4efe-8237-6a39b88ab4eb

which suggests that the use of storage spaces can also be problematic.



This is confusing so I’m seeking expert advice on what is the recommended best way forward to accomplish a reliable RAID 1 setup win Windows 10 Pro please. I don't want a future Windows 10 upgrade to screw things up again. Note that I do occasionally do a manual backup to a portable hard drive but that is a lot of hassle itself so only do it occasionally.



Many thanks in anticipation for your expert advice

Paul

:)

 

Is it possible to easily setup Raid-1 on this system ?

Get the six core CPU's I listed, at 3.3Ghz per core they will more than handle any calculations you throw at them for years to come, and with matching RAM in tri channel you will have a very strong setup.


My only other suggestion is a full RAID card like the one I listed with SSD's (in RAID 1)for the OS and programs, and then a RAID 5 array for backup and any large files on the board with a offsite final backup

 

Is it possible to easily setup Raid-1 on this system ?

Thank you so much.

Dell system I am buying as a back has Xeon E5645 2.2 GHz & 12 GB ECC RAM

They don't offer Xeon W3680 that you suggested

So would that be good enough ?

Thanks

 

Fresh Win 10 Pro install and RAID 1

Thanks guys. I set up RAID in the BIOS following MSI settings in their manual. Then I loaded windows following the prompts. But I must have missed a step. And hence my questions after my install. So, I did as you suggested Samuria, and set it up in Windows. I would have preferred a MoBo hardware setup. But as long as I have RAID 1 I will be happy. Thanks, B.