Hey techy guys, I came across many articles on Google regarding XP Pro and 2000's built in ability to support software Raid 5, with just a few edits of 3 files using a Hex editor. Below is one of the websites I found. I'm thinking about building a HTPC for DVD playback using TheaterTek software, a OTA HDTV tuner, PVR, etc... I also would like to place lots of music/videos on the array.

Sounds like for a basic file server environment, this option has some hope, and does not require a controller card, etc... as long as the mobo has enough HD plugin's you could be good to go and have a great data recovery solution if one drive failed. Everything else could regenerate your data.

Any thoughts after reading this article, or has anybody tried this solution?



http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/19/using_windowsxp_to_make_raid_5_happen/

I haven't read the article yet so maybe things have improved, but there used to be real problems if you RAID-ed your boot disk then had a problem. As long as you are only RAID-ing your D: drive that should be OK.

Since we were mostly looking to save $$ on application servers with small drives, this didn't help us much, but for a straight file server it should be pretty good.

Thanks John

It is my understanding would still be on the 0 disk, and the data would be on 3 or more drives which are set to be dynamic. They even pulled one of the SATA drives and the other drives regenerated the data. They also simulated a controller failing and hooked up the array to a different controller, and everything came up on its own.

Sounds like I had better read the article. Either it has improved, or the TH folks have figured out how to make it dance...

Ahh, I see. They're patching the files to enable the Server 2003 functionality in the disk subsystem. That should be pretty good then.

Remember that if this catches on Microsoft will probably "fix" the ability to make this patch via a "security update"

Actually making a Google search of "Software Raid XP" or similar search brings back ton's of websites/forumns discussing this with 2000 and XP. I think for a file/data server it would work fairly well. I think a controller based setup would work better for larger network or application based servers. Otherwise you would get lots of CPU utilization and it would slow down. For data storage for HTPC of movies/songs/etc... I'll have to check out motherboards and hard drives to see what it would cost to achieve this type of setup...

I just remember that on the Win2K version the recovery wasn't so reliable. Sounds like it works pretty well today though...

Now, without reading the article, I could be just plain wrong (shocker!) but doesn't RAID 5 use an awful lot of processor power? I mean, I love RAID 5, but I'd much rather do it with a dedicated coprocessor...

It sure does, but (a) processors are insanely fast these days, and (b) it's a fileserver, dude, what else is it doing (other than admittedly dealing with the ever growing AntiVirus overhead)

Point, point...

I always hate selling my clients massively overpowered file servers, but it almost always comes out to their advantage later, if the machine gets repurposed (or more likely more services) or a new OS, etc, etc...