How good is Windows 7 software RAID? Is it faster or slower than a cheap hardware controller (aka “fake RAID”)?
This past month I’ve realized the simultaneous need to add more hard drive storage and decrease the probability of losing the data stored within. While I fully realize that redundant hard disks are not a substitute for a backup, I do want to use a RAID array to reduce the likelihood that I have to restore that data from a backup. Also, I plan to put data on that disk that I would be annoyed to lose, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world (i.e. music, movies, etc.).
Disk drives are cheap (1.5TB is currently running around $100), but industrial-grade RAID controllers are not. Being that I’m cheap, have an old (4 years is old, right?) system, and just need a bare-minimum amount of reliability I’m looking for the cheapest way to add a couple of mirrored drives. That basically means that I use a “fake RAID” hardware controller or a solution managed completely by Windows. There are various pros and cons to each, but I’ll tell you up front that Windows 7 software RAID was what I chose because of performance & trust. After the break I’ll get to the details as to why.
Continue reading ‘RAID on the Cheap: Windows 7 Software RAID vs. inexpensive “fake RAID”’
My recent hard disk failure made me realize that I had no idea where to find the CHDSK logs that are created when Windows runs CHKDSK at boot. In my case, I had just installed a drive that had a bunch of NTFS corruptions caused by a different computer.
Below I walk though what I think is the easiest way to find the CHKDSK logs (and more) which are available in the Windows Event Log.
Continue reading ‘Where to find CHKDSK results in Vista, Windows 7′
Damn it. Just when I’m getting ready to backup my PC for that ever-exciting OS upgrade, my external backup hard drive died… a strange death, too. I was deleting an old backup set to make room for the most current and the drive started to hang. Once it finally cancels out, the drive disappears from the computer entirely. Reboot. Plug back in. And then comes the big ‘uh-oh’ … Windows can’t read the drive and wants to format it.
Logical guess: looks like the controller for the external drive has failed. Time to pull it out and stick it in the server.
[edit] Yep… my Adaptec USB 2.0 external enclosure released the last of it’s remaining magic blue smoke. Dropping the drive into my Windows 7 server box rebuilt the drive indexes and recovered the data via chkdsk.
I dropped GoDaddy.com as my webhost last week, and so far it looks like it was a great choice. I’ve switched over to 1&1 via Firewallender’s recommendation and I have not been disappointed.
Continue reading ‘go daddy gone’
From WindowsTeamBlog.com:
On January 9th, the Windows 7 Beta will be available for Windows enthusiasts to download via the Windows 7 page on Windows.com. The Windows 7 Beta is going to be available download-only (we’re not sending out physical media) and available for a limited time to the first 2.5 million people who download the beta.
I’m super excited about this. Like, compeltely ecstatic. I’ve been talking up Win7 now for months to my friends and now we really get to show it off and have a ton of people try it. Yes, I’m pimping out my work because I’m damn proud of it!
Most important, “Give Feedback”! Everyone who uses Windows 7 will have the opportunity to give Microsoft feedback on pretty much everything. It’s the best way you can help Microsoft understand your experience with Windows 7. And, yes, we’re listening. :) There’s an easy lil button for you to click that sends us your comments and thoughts and musings. So, if you find bugs, report them!
For more information, see the Windows 7 page here (http://microsoft.com/windows7). If you want to get it as soon as it comes out, there’s an RSS feed that will let you know as soon as the public Beta becomes available (feed here: http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/MainFeed.aspx).
EDIT 2009/12/11: Microsoft Provides a tool to do this for you - Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool which is available for download here. If you need instructions on how to use the tool, see the Microsoft Store Help on the ISO-Tool (http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool).
It surprised me to find that there are very few dead-simple guides to creating a bootable USB thumb/pen/flash drive for a Vista and/or Windows 7 installation. I cobbled together the following from VistaPCGuy and another source I don’t remember right now.
This will walk through the steps to create a bootable USB flash drive for the purpose of installing a Vista or Windows 7 OS. These instructions assume that you have a computer with Windows Vista installed on it.
Continue reading ‘Creating Bootable Vista / Windows 7 USB Flash Drive’
I’m an Outlook user, at home and at work, and I have been for the last 10 years. It syncs with my phone, so all of my contacts stay up to date, as well as my notes, calendar, and email. I can use it with any account, including my Google GMail account. However, times they are a change’n and I’m willing to let more of my data live in the Cloud. How do I keep using Outlook and have all my data on my laptop and phone in sync in that world?
Continue reading ‘Outlook in a Google World’
Christmas came early this year in the form of a brand new Dell M1330 XPS laptop. Being a staunch IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad devotee, switching to a Dell is a big jump for me. So far I’ve been nothing but impressed. The build quality is superb, it runs Vista like a champ, and the battery life has been good despite having the smaller of the two battery options. Most surprising is the minimal amount of bundled crapware installed when it came out of the box.
Continue reading ‘Dell XPS M1330: unboxing’
It’s common to use the “Links” toolbar in IE to keep your favorites handy. What’s great is that you can drag-and-drop into the folders directly from the link without having to use somewhat-clunky Add Favorites dialog. Drag, drop, and you’ve got your bookmark.
Having just purchased a new PC, I copied my Favorites from my old machine to the new and encountered a well known issue with Windows Vista User Account Control. Skip to the end if you just want to fix your problem. If you’re curious about the details, here’s the rough outline:
Continue reading ‘Dragging/Dropping bookmarks to Favorites: Fixing "Access is Denied" error in Internet Explorer on Vista’
Kevin & Ricky @ the Demo Booth
There’s been all kinds of fun craziness (some of it even work-related) since I’ve been here in LA. PDC was all about Windows Azure and Windows 7, which is really cool. I can finally start talking publicly about the work my team has been doing, in particular the work done by my team on Windows Troubleshooting which will make more sense to the average person than the stuff I work on directly. It’s really cool stuff. All of it.
Continue reading ‘PDC’d… about to HEC the Win’
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