how to add third hard drive ?

[djtaylor]

however with software raid it is software dependant, so as long as the OS can see the drives it will be able to restore the logical volume.

You've answered your own problem there "as long as the OS can see the drives"

and what if it can't? You ever been through the process of recovering a Windows system where the OS is on mirrored drives and the system volume is on the failed disk?

RAID 5 performance in software is sub optimal at best as it requires multiple reads from the disk set to read the current contents, buffer, XOR to produce parity and then replace. As ever, we tend to replace software problems with bigger and faster hardware instead of addressing the actual problem by using the right controller in the first place.

Besides it's also cheaper to buy a hardware RAID card than it is to buy Windows 2003 server which is the version of Windows that supports software RAID5.

David.

[Ted the Penguin]

honestly my OS is not that important to me, I install it, and put anything that is important on another partition, if you are looking for better application performance, make a raid 0 array for applications.


Windows XP supports RAID 5 , and if you want to use RAID 5 and understand the reasons its better you should be able to do everything to make it work in XP
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/19/u..._5_happen/

as for performance, I will be using software RAID in a file server, so performance is not that big of a deal.

I did not mean to attack you personally I was just trying to iullistrate a point. I agree that in a high performance workstation enviroment a hardware raid card is the best solution.

[djtaylor]

if you are looking for better application performance, make a raid 0 array for applications.


Windows XP supports RAID 5 , and if you want to use RAID 5 and understand the reasons its better you should be able to do everything to make it work in XP
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/19/u..._5_happen/

Performance for my PVR is the other issue, I have 4 tuners which when working full tilt recording 4 programmes at once and potentially playing out to 3 MVPs performance is critical and hence that's the other reason for my RAID 0 choice.

Incidentally, hex editing the Windows code is a breach of the EULA and is thus illegal. Reality of being sued for it for home use, ZERO but all the same, that's why I said it's a server feature, I know it has been doable for years.

David.