The difference between hard RAID and soft RAID

What is RAID?

RAID is the abbreviation of English Redundant Array of Independent Disks, translated into Chinese is a redundant array of independent disks, or simply disk array. Simply put, RAID is a combination of multiple independent hard disks (physical hard disks) in different ways to form a disk group (logical hard disk), which provides higher storage performance and data redundancy than a single hard disk. The different ways of composing a disk array become RAID Levels.

Why do we use RAID?

People who need to save a lot of data on the hard disk (such as a normal manager) will be very convenient to use RAID technology. The main reasons for adopting RAID are:

· Enhanced speed
· Expanded storage capacity (and more convenience)
· Efficient recovery of disk

Hard RAID and soft The difference between RAID:

What is hard RAID?

It is hard RAID to realize RAID function by hardware. For example: various RAID cards, and RAID that can be done by motherboard integration are hard RAID.
What is soft RAID?

It is soft RAID that uses the operating system to complete the RAID function. For example, under the Windows2000 operating system, RAID5 is made with three hard disks.

Performance

This is probably the most important aspect. RAID is used to improve performance. In theory, using RAID0 can achieve double the speed of using a single hard disk, which can be approached with soft/hard RAID0. The CPU usage of soft RAID is higher, so in terms of performance, hard RAID should lead.

Second, stability

Do RAID is to pursue performance, so generally use 7200rpm hard drive. The heat output of the mainstream 7200rpm hard disk is generally large, and at the same time put two pieces in the chassis, heat dissipation is already a problem, let alone three. After all, stability is overwhelming. If the hard drive is burned, it will not be worth the loss. Moreover, some chassis can't fit three hard drives at all. Therefore, the stability of using hard RAID is higher.

Three, easy to operate

It takes only a few simple steps to implement RAID in Windows2000/2003. The entire interface is Chinese, even those who don't know much about RAID can achieve. If you use an external RAID card, the operation is much more troublesome, the operation interface is English, you can not use translation software, so the soft RAID is easier to implement.

Four Compatibility

So far, only Windows 2000/2003 supports soft RAID. This means that if you use soft RAID, then you must give up Win9x/WinMe/Linux and so on. Hard RAID compatibility is better, even compatible with DOS. If there is a problem with Windows, it is much more convenient to do system maintenance.

V. Security

Software is not secure. When a hard disk is damaged, it cannot be rebuilt, and its limitations are also very good. Hard RAID has When the hard disk is lost, it can be rebuilt, and if the RAID card is damaged, it can replace the RAID card to achieve the function of not losing data.
The difference between motherboard integrated RAID and plug-in RAID card RAID:

1. Performance

The integrated RAID of the motherboard, its performance and its speed is through the CPU and memory of the motherboard. Realized, it will occupy a certain bandwidth of the motherboard, it will affect the performance of the whole machine, and the external RAID card, it itself by its own CPU and memory, so its data processing will be handled by itself, will not affect the motherboard CPU and memory speed, in general, the RAID of the extrapolated RAID card is much faster than the RAID integrated by the motherboard.

Second, security

The integrated RAID of the motherboard can not be guaranteed. For example, we use P8SCT motherboard to do a SATA RAID. No matter what RAID you do, it is changed. The BIOS option of the motherboard is made, so once the motherboard is damaged, the CMOS battery of the motherboard is powered down, and the BIOS setting of the motherboard is inadvertently changed, the RAID will be lost. The RAID made by the motherboard will not be recovered once it is lost. It is very serious, and the RAID made by the external RAID card will not affect the data due to the damage of the motherboard and the CMOS battery of the motherboard. Therefore, the extra RAID card is much safer than the motherboard. Integrated.

Conclusion: When choosing the RAID form, first of all, according to the customer's needs, the price of the whole machine and the final use of this machine customer, depending on several circumstances.