Useful Windows 7 feature
I just discovered that Windows 7 (pro and above I believe) has RAID 1 (mirroring) built in. You can even boot from it.
I’ve used this feature on a Windows Server in the past, but I believe this is the first time it has been released in a desktop operating system.
To get it working is pretty easy. Please note that this is only appropriate if Windows 7 is the only operating system that you are running on the system. Other operating systems may not be able to see the dynamic disks.
- Add a second hard drive of equal size to your first one – I recommend using the exact same model
- Open up Computer Management in Administrative Tools. Go to the Disk Manager.
- Right click each disk (make sure you right click the disk and not a partition on the disk) and convert it to a dynamic disk
- Right click each partition on the original hard drive, and select add mirror.
- Wait for disks to sync.
Also worth noting is that software mirrors created by Windows 7 will not auto rebuild. If a hard drive dies, you’ll have to replace the broken drive, boot off of the working drive, break and then recreate the mirror set (or so I’ve read). Even with this limitation, it was perfect for an older machine that I didn’t want to buy a RAID card for.