Windows 7 Disk Management Spanned Volume vs Striped Volume

A spanned volume can be extended, but not a stripped.

A failure of eiher drive in a stripped volume will result in a total loss. You may be able get some data back from a spanned volume if the file is completly on one disk.

If you do not have a good backup system, then I suggest you don't use either option.

A Span is not a RAID type, a Stripe is (RAID0).

You can build Stripes from Spans, but not Spans from Stripes. :)

Say you had 3 drives - 1 x 500GB drive and 2 x 250GB drives.

You can create a spanned volume across the 2 x 250GB drives, giving you 1 x 500GB volume. You then use that in a Stripe with the 500GB drive so that you get the balance you need to take advantage of RAID0 (the Stripe).

Or use the Span + the 500GB drive to make a 500GB Mirror (RAID1).

I will say that this is general info about RAIDs, and I'm not sure Windows' inbuilt software RAID actually allows this, as I personally never use software RAIDs. :)