Does Vista require software for RAID 0?

[Guest]

Hi

I just installed Vista 64 Business on a built machine. I set it up in RAID
0. When I look at the device manager for my hard disks, I see it detects it
as " ATI 2+0 / 0 RAID. " Windows Explorer shows the hard drive proper as
well.

Does Vista have built in RAID support? I always thought you needed to set
up the raid in the BIOS as well as install software.

I have 2 controllers. One is an ATI SB600 and the other is a JMicron. Once
I installed the driver/software for the JMicron, it installed a program to
manage my RAID, but says there is no RAID ( I detect this is because I have
my RAID on the ATI controller and not the JMicron.) There is no software
installed for the ATI controller, just the driver. The software I find for
the ATI is for XP only and there isn't any for Vista.

Is there anything I need to do or is my RAID working properly as RAID 0 in
Vista?

Thanks!
J

 

[Guest]

Jeff:
RAID always requires to be set in BIOS.
Additionaly, the OS needs drivers (whether external or embedded) for
detecting and managing the RAID configured in BIOS.
Vista x64 had embedded drivers for my NForce4 chipset so I had only to do
the BIOS thing.
XP x64 didn't have embedded drivers so I had to supply drivers via floppy
(a.k.a. "F6 disk") during OS install.
I have found so far no need for additional software.

Carlos

 

[Joe Guidera]

You can enable RAID at the hardware level that is (or can be) transparent to
the operating system. However, typically if the operating system has
specific driver support for the RAID controller you can gain some extra
benefits (depending on the controller). For example: the operating system
may be able to more intelligently take advantage of a RAID set (split seeks,
etc).

RAID may be implemented in either hardware or software, or both. The
Windows NT family of operating systems (of which Vista could arguably be
called the latest) has had support for software based RAID for a number of
years (striped volumes).

So therefore it is not true that you need to setup RAID at both the software
and hardware level. It is, however, almost always preferable to setup a
RAID set in hardware.

Joe