50 MAXIMUMPC NOVEMBER 2007
RAID 1+0
The best of both worlds, the RAID 1+0
combination approach yields great
results! Right?The mix-and-match of RAID setups, RAID
1+0 offers a unique combination of RAID
0 performance with RAID 1 data protec-
tion. It’s one of the proud members of the
“nested” category of RAID confi gurations.
Like peanut butter on bread, a nested RAID
uses one RAID confi guration as the base
for a second RAID. This hybridization gives
you a chance to reap the benefi ts of both
setups, although you’ll never achieve the
ultimate benefi ts of either.
Each RAID controller will handle the
setup of the RAID 1+0 confi g differently,
and some won’t even support such fancystorage dreams. Whether the controller
defaults to RAID 1+0 or forces you to cre-
ate an array on top of an array, the basic
premise is still the same.
You’ll need at least four hard drives to
create a RAID 1+0 setup. Logistically, the
drives are split into two pairs. Each pair
operates as a mirrored array, or RAID 1.
The two pairs are then chained together
in a RAID 0 confi guration. This gives you
data redundancy on the micro level, while
still giving you speed and storage benefi ts
on the macro level. You’re safe from data
loss as long as you lose only one drive per
mirrored pair. You’ll face the same data loss
problem that plagues individual RAID 0
arrays if both drives in either of the mirrored
pairs suffer an untimely demise.HANDS ON
RAID 1+0 performance is far superior to
that of a single Raptor drive. But that’slike saying ice cream is tastier than cat
food. Two Raptors in a RAID 0 confi gura-
tion still dominated in the average write
portion of our HD Tach benchmarks.
And that makes complete sense, as the
mirroring portion of the RAID 1+0 array
reduces its performance.
RAID 1+0’s average read speeds, on
the other hand, are higher than those of
two Raptors in RAID 0, but that’s not so
much an issue of technology as it is one
of scalability. Just for giggles, we fi red up
four Raptor drives in a striped RAID to get
a true, four-drive showdown. The four-drive
RAID 0 mercilessly decimated the bench-
marks of our RAID 1+0 setup. Average read
speeds were 38MB/s faster and average
write speeds were 43MB/s faster. If you’re
willing to risk catastrophic data loss, RAID
0 is still a speed demon’s friend. But you
certainly won’t suffer, speedwise, with a
RAID 1+0 array.If you want the size benefi ts of a striped
array but don’t feel like setting one up using
your motherboard’s controller—or if your
motherboard doesn’t include a RAID control-
ler—you can actually create a large, striped
drive in Windows itself. Just head over to
your computer management screen (you get
to it by right-clicking Computer in the Start
Menu and selecting Manage). Convert the
drives you want to stripe to dynamic disks,then create a new volume and
select “striped” for the confi gura-
tion. Voila! The speeds of the array
won’t be nearly as fast as those
of a controller-based striped array,
but they’re still noticeably faster than
a single Raptor’s, with the added benefi t
that your data isn’t tied to a controller that’s
soldered onto your motherboard.MAKE A RAID WITH WINDOWS
Best scores are bolded.Burst (MB/s) Average Read (MB/s) Average Write (MB/s) Score XP Loading (MB/s) App. Loading (MB/s) Virus Scanning (MB/s) File writing (MB/s)
RAID 0 (FOUR) 414.1 208.7 180.2 11,954.0 23.19 9.07 131.52 272.87
RAID 0 (TWO) 358.56 156.2 158.36 8,949.3 15.80 6.07 102.22 266.76
RAID 1+0 334.1 170.73 137.8 10,307.7 22.43 7.90 106.22 225.33
SINGLE DRIVE 452.1 78.0 102.7 6329.0 10.42 4.93 77.88 160.51HD TACH PCMARKO5HD TACH PCMARKO5Best score are bolded. HD Tach measures hardware-based volumes and cannot run benchmarks on software-based RAID solutions.DONE RIGHTRAID
Burst
(MB/s)Average Read
(MB/s)Average Write
(MB/s) ScoreXP Loading
(MB/s)App. Loading
(MB/s)Virus Scanning
(MB/s) File Writing (MB/s)
CONTROLLER RAID 358.56 156.2 158.36 8,949.3 15.8 6.07 102.22 266.76
WINDOWS RAID N/A N/A N/A 8,107.5 13.6 5.63 100.82 239.74
SINGLE DRIVE 452.1 78.0 102.7 6,329.0 10.42 4.93 77.88 160.51