do video game consoles use software or hardware raid

Alright, so the other day I was digging into this whole thing about whether video game consoles use software or hardware RAID. It’s a bit of a rabbit hole, but I figured it out in the end. Here’s how it all went down.

First off, I started poking around to see what the deal is with RAID in general. Turns out, there are two main types: hardware RAID and software RAID. I mean, it makes sense, right? Hardware stuff uses some kind of special controller, while software does it all with, well, software.

• So, I dug into hardware RAID first. It needs a dedicated controller card. This card does all the heavy lifting, like mirroring or striping the data across multiple drives. If that card goes kaput, you gotta replace it with the exact same kind or a similar one, or you’re kinda screwed.
• Then, I looked at software RAID. This one doesn’t need any external controller. It’s all done through the operating system or some other software. The thing is, there are a bunch of ways to implement it, but I didn’t get too deep into the weeds on that one.

Now, here’s the thing that got me scratching my head: technically, both hardware and software RAID do the same job, just in different ways. I mean, under the hood it is kind of the same work.

I also stumbled upon this thing called “BIOS RAID.” Sounds fancy, but it’s really just a type of software RAID. The BIOS on your motherboard handles some or all of the RAID setup. But it’s not true hardware RAID, so it’s more like a half-way solution, you know?

So, after all that, I still needed to figure out what those darn video game consoles are using. I spent a good chunk of time sifting through forums and tech articles. It was a mess, let me tell you. Nobody seemed to have a straight answer.

Eventually, I pieced it together. Most modern consoles, they lean towards a software-based approach. They’ve got beefy processors and sophisticated operating systems, so they can handle the RAID stuff without needing extra hardware. Saves on cost and space, I guess.

Wrap up

In the end, my quest to understand RAID in consoles was a bit of a wild ride, but it wasn’t too bad. The answer, at least for most modern consoles, seems to be software RAID. It’s just more efficient for them. Case closed, I guess.