Dynamic Disk and Performance.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)
  • Start date Start date
Windows XP has built-in Dynamic Disk feature, which is , as far as I've
heard, something like software RAID. Binding two hard diskes with RAID
certainly increases disk I/O performance, but it requires a RAID card.
How about Dynamic Disk? I think it'll consume more CPU cycle compared
to hardware RAID, right? But does it increase disk I/O performance? Do
you recommend Dynamic Disk for low-end machines, say Celeron 800MHz?
 
No, in fact I would avoid Dynamic Disks entirely for a home use PC.
Disk drives are the "Slowest" bottleneck in a PC, invest in a SATA
card and newer SATA drive (~$80) and you'll get a much better bump
in overall performance than "Twiddling" around with Dynamic Disks &
software based RAID.
 
As far as I know, you can set up a "software RAID" system without a RAID
controller. Since the software is doing all the RAID controls, the
controller card is not required. DO NOT USE this on low-end machines! This
requires more RAM and will slow down the system extremely!!! If you want a
RAID system. spend the extra money and buy a true RAID controller. You will
save the amount from the time you gain back. Also, dynamic disks are not
"truly" recommended on XP Home.
 
If you have a dynamic disk, then forget about ever being able to use any 3rd
party disk management utilities such as Ghost, Partition Magic, or data
recovery softwares that are operated from a DOS boot disk. AFAIK they cannot
work with dynamic disks.

This is an important consideration when you think of the various possible
disasters that can happen (or that you wish to prevent from happening) to
your system.
 
Sin said:
Windows XP has built-in Dynamic Disk feature, which is , as far as I've
heard, something like software RAID.
Click to expand...

Nothing like RAID at all.
Binding two hard diskes with RAID
certainly increases disk I/O performance, but it requires a RAID card.
Yup.

How about Dynamic Disk? I think it'll consume more CPU cycle compared
to hardware RAID, right?
Yup.

But does it increase disk I/O performance?
Nope.

Do
you recommend Dynamic Disk for low-end machines, say Celeron 800MHz?
Click to expand...

Nope.

Additionally...
You can only create RAID5 arrays using Dynamic Disks in Windows 2000
series Server OSes.

http://www.petri.co.il/difference_between_basic_and_dynamic_disks_in_windows_xp_2000_2003.htm

I've yet to see any evidence that DD has any benefits over Basic Disks
in a desktop OS except for the ability to span volumes across physical
disks which isn't really a benifit at all; spanning volumes across
physical disks is a recipe for disaster no matter how it's accomplised;
lose a disk and you've lost the entire volume. Period.

Disk I/O performance is and always has been primarily hardware
dependant; a disk subsystem cannot possibly transfer data any faster
than it was designed to no matter what software you throw at it.

Implementing Dynamic Disks in a desktop OS is a waste of time.

Steve
 
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