Macrium and Optane

Hi there
Personally with SSD's these days I think Windows would be far better to have Software RAID like Linux does (mdadm) then problem is solved since the bootable media would include the Windows RAID drivers and so could image the disks.

However Windows seems resolutely to ignore any sort of RAID and IMO consumer grade hardware RAID cards are generally extremely poor.

Good RAID hardware controllers or SAS type things are very expensive but software RAID works a treat on Linux systems -- I've long wanted a decent RAID system for Windows - especially now we have decent fast discs and also decent large capacity drives too. The old NTFS and FAT32 file systems really need an upgrade to newer properly journalised and resilient file systems.

I suspect Optane is going nowhere --it's certainly still as rare as hens teeth even today.

Cheers
jimbo

Well if you check in Windows the RST + Optane setup is reported as a software raid implementation, but also reported by the system as an SSD (the Optane + HDD paired).
This seems to be a very situational setup and clunky at best.

I have a feeling this is why it is such a dangerous setup when trying to image the disk, especially if using a *DOS* based boot disk, since the RST controller has BIOS support, but the Optane driver and cache don't work in the *DOS* environment.
I agree with you totally, why all versions of Win10 don't use the same file system as Win10 Pro Workstation is beyond me, shouldn't be beyond MS to find a way to convert existing installs to use it.
There already exist utilities to convert NTFS to FAT and vice versa, and MBR to GPT and vice versa.

Pejole2165 said:

Well if you check in Windows the RST + Optane setup is reported as a software raid implementation, but also reported by the system as an SSD (the Optane + HDD paired).
This seems to be a very situational setup and clunky at best.

I have a feeling this is why it is such a dangerous setup when trying to image the disk, especially if using a *DOS* based boot disk, since the RST controller has BIOS support, but the Optane driver and cache don't work in the *DOS* environment.
I agree with you totally, why all versions of Win10 don't use the same file system as Win10 Pro Workstation is beyond me, shouldn't be beyond MS to find a way to convert existing installs to use it.
There already exist utilities to convert NTFS to FAT and vice versa, and MBR to GPT and vice versa.

Hi there
it might be some sort of "Cludged Software Raid" but since it isn't a standard Windows supplied solution then of course it's risky especially if you want to move your OS to other hardware or non INTEL supplied HDD's / SSD's etc.

The Window files system IMO really needs an upgrade -- I'm really disappointed that new file systems aren't yet available say in the skip ahead Windows builds -- 20H1 etc -- what's the point of using it just to try out some miserable new themes etc -- what those builds should really be doing is testing the next generation of Windows not on how to make the current version better. I'm happy to put up with all sorts of defects and B/G/SOD's if we are testing new features -- such as WSL2, Sandbox etc etc.

IMO Windows needs Software RAID --NOW !!!!!! "....What do we want .... Software RAID ... " "When do we want it ".... "..Now"

I have no trouble backing up / cloning Linux stuff on RAID disks -- since I have mega reliable disks I'm even using RAID 0 which gives super fast performance but at a risk as if you lose any HDD in the array you lose the lot --but I take backup anyway so no prob.

Here I've got 4 HDD's in a 20TB RAID 0 array -- great thing with Linux RAID is that HDD's can be all sorts of sizes so you don't need to have similar size HDD;s.

Here I have /dev/md127 which is my RAID 0 array consisting of 4 HDD's.



In the file explorer (Dolphin on my Linux system) here's the aggregate 20 TB drive



Cheers
jimbo

Right let me just clarify.
My original post was made because I was somewhat confused as to how Optane worked in a system and interacted with Imaging software.
Several points:
For Optane to work you should leave at least 5Mb of unallocated space at the end of the system drive. According to Intel this space is where Optane stores its configuration settings.
Again according to Intel if the Optane module and/or the accelerated HDD fail...both will be unusable.
I have since worked out that the Optane module will appear in Windows disk management as an uninitialized disk, in theory then you could clean the module (remove all data) and re-use it with another HDD (this is a best guess, not tested as I have only the one PC).
In order to function the system should have the Intel RST driver installed (there is a pre-install driver available if needed) and the Intel Optane system drivers (setup using the Intel SetupOptane.exe utility).
This whole setup only works IN Windows.
The Optane module caches often used files to speed up access, sounds pretty straightforward, however when Optane is setup for the first time the system is re-booted (I assume to start the needed services) but also I think copies certain Windows files and changes the path to those files (welcome screen appears so quick and log in screen responds instantly, and most of Windows is up and running before you even get past the log in screen). Conversely when you dis-able Optane it seems to re-write those files back to the HDD.
However I have noticed that my boot time from BIOS to Desktop is significantly reduced under Optane, by which I mean my BIOS seems to load quicker as well as Windows.
Looking in the BIOS I found the option (on by default) of Disk Controller Mode----Intel RST + Optane.
So with all this in mind I decided to ask if anyone knew how it all worked together, especially with a Macrium boot disk.
The reason being that Macrium ignores the RST driver, and the Optane drivers, and ignores the unallocated space when choosing partitions to image, so the 5Mb that holds the Optane settings will be lost.
I will state that I have successfully used the Macrium boot USB to boot my PC, image my system drive to an external USB HDD then restore that image to the same system HDD even after deleting every single partition.
But...and this is where I am not certain (and unable to experiment), my method is to dis-able Optane within Windows before making an image from the Macrium USB boot.
This is the perceived method to use based on feedback on the Intel forums.
I assume that Macrium's file backup setting is unaffected in all this because it's not backing up partition information.
But what about a disk image made within Windows with Optane enabled, which I assume is the method a lot of users might use.
Sorry If I alarmed you with all this, it really wasn't my intention.
I really wanted to understand more about it, someone else posted a very similar question on the Intel Optane forums about Optane + Macrium and basically received the advice, dis-able Optane to be certain.