To increase performance and safeguard your files against a single drive failure, you may use a RAID 5 setup on Windows 10 to merge several drives into a single large logical storage unit.
Although you can utilize any of the numerous RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) levels, the striped volume with parity (RAID 5) uses parity to distribute the data over three or more disks. You can replace the drive in the event of a hardware failure, and the data on the other drives will be used to recreate the data.
If you attempt to set up a software-based RAID 5 using the Disk Management tool, you will see that the option is grayed out since it is only available on Windows Server, even if you can utilize a hardware-based solution on Windows 10. Nevertheless, a striped volume with parity that functions similarly to a RAID 5 setup can be made using Storage Spaces.
This tutorial will show you how to use Storage Spaces to configure RAID 5 storage on Windows 10.
Create a RAID 5 storage from Storage Spaces on Windows 10
Follow these instructions to configure RAID 5 storage from Storage Spaces in Windows 10:
Windows 10’s OpenSettings.
Select “System.”
Select “Storage.”
Click the Manage Storage Spaces option in the More Storage options section.
Select the option to “Create a new pool and storage space.”
To establish a storage pool, choose three or more drives.
Select the option to create a pool.
Give the storage array a name, letter, and file system under the Name and drive letter section.
Choose the Parity option, which is the RAID 5 level, from the Resiliency type drop-down selection under the Resiliency section.
If necessary, enter the maximum size under the Size section.
To create storage space, click the button.
The RAID 5 storage will be set up to begin storing files with fault tolerance when you finish the steps, and the data will still be available even if one of the drives dies.
Although conventional hard disks are typically not made for this configuration, you are technically free to utilize any drive. Drives made for storage arrays, like the Seagate IronWolfor4TB Western Digital (Red) 4TB drive, are a good choice if you’re establishing a storage array to hold a lot of files or if you intend to share the storage on the network with other users.