So What Is Drive Extender?
Now that Microsoft has killed it off, let’s look at some alternatives.
If you are looking to set up Windows software RAID check out our how-to article explaining the process.
Note: Software RAID options may not be available in all versions of Windows.
disParity-disParityis a software RAID solution that is very minimalistic.
It is completely command line driven which can be very good for some people and very scary for others.
It will allow you to set up your data drives and then also keep a parity drive for recovery.
FlexRAID-flexRAID, similar to disParity, focuses on the recovery abilities of RAID rather than the massive storage pool.
Be sure to check out our upcoming how-to on setting it up with Ubuntu Server.
If you are looking for a quick overview on how it works check outRevision 3’s video.
MooseFS-MooseFSis a bit more involved than the other solutions but it is much more flexible as well.
All of the other solutions have relied on one machine with a lot of hard drives plugged in.
MooseFS relies on a couple servers running management with a lot of other computers doing the storage.
Otherwise it probably is best to leave it for corporations and businesses.
Beta Options
All of the options above are fully stable and at least somewhat mature options.
There are a couple more options you may want to look at.
Despite being beta releases, they have some features that the others may not incorporate.
Ceph-Cephis a new distributed file system that is just now starting to make its way into the Linux kernel.
