How to have a RAID1 accessible from both Ubuntu and Windows?

Ceccoclat

12/2/23, 11:31 AM

This topic has been discussed many times, but i didn't find anything specific to my situation. I would like to create a RAID1 with 2 sata drives (same brand, model,capacity). My objective is to have this raid accessible from both Windows and Ubuntu, wich are located in 2 other separate drives. So i am not trying to boot from the raid, i am just using it for storing data. I know that the easy solution would be to go for a real raid controller card, but im trying to find out if it is really necessary to spend more money. As for the software raid option, for what i've understood you can't do such a thing and make it accessible from both linux and windows, but correct me if im wrong. So now i am thinking about doing it using the built-in motherboard controller, but every discussion i've read comes to the conclusion that you shouldn't do it because:

1 - If you change motherboard you won't be sure your next hardware is gonna read the data.

2 - motherboard implementations of raid usually use CPU resources.

3 - motherboard implementations usually dont have powerloss safety features, and this could mess up the data.

My questions are:

1 - Are statements (1) and (3) true also if you have a RAID1 configuration? I am saying this beacuse since it is just a straight copy i would assume the way the data is written isn't that cryptic and i can read it easily if one of the 2 corrupts(or if i change motherboard).

2 - Do all motherboards do this "fake" raid? In my case on the manufacturer site explicitly says that it supports RAID 0, 1 and 10.

3 - Is there a better way to achieve what I am trying to do?

My motherboard : https://it.msi.com/Motherboard/B450-GAMING-PRO-CARBON-MAX-WIFI/Specification

Thanks in advance

1 + 0

fakeraid

software-raid

hardware-raid

Score:0

Server

Chopper3

12/2/23, 11:50 AM

So let's go through all this;

You're right that switching an array from one motherboard to another, when using motherboard based hardware RAID, is not certain to work.
CPU usage for motherboard based RAID varies based on the actual RAID controller - some use CPU resources, some don't.
You're right that most motherboard based RAID controllers don't have battery-backed-cache or similar.

Not all motherboards have RAID capabilities - certainly more consumer-grade ones do have these CPU-resource-using 'fake RAID' controllers, for server motherboards there's often some basic RAID controller, usually the kind that has no OS-driver/software requirements and therefore not needing CPU resources.

If you need this kind of thing the best way forward is just to buy a dedicated hardware RAID adapter as that way the array is 'transportable' and takes no CPU resources to manage. Then just create the R1 array, partition with a type common to both OS's (MBR or GPT typically) and format using again a common filesystem - FAT being the obvious one.

I do have to say though that we couldn't recommend using a consumer/gaming motherboard/CPU for anything to do with a production system - it'll lack all manner of functionality that professional sysadmins rely on - IPMI, dual PSU and ECC support, limited RAM slots, single CPU support and limited PCIe lanes. Try to use professional kit to support professional platforms basically.

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