Raid question

[arfett]

I'm about to purchase a 500gb hard drive which I'm planning on filling up about half way before buying a second 500gb drive a week later. If I want to set up a RAID-1 between the two of them when I pop in the 2nd drive will the RAID utility at bootup allow me to setup the RAID-1 and copy the files from the first drive to the other or do both of them have to be formatted to setup the RAID-1?

 

Thanks in advance.

[taowulf]

You would need to back up the info on the first disk, then copy it back to the RAID when you add the second and establish the RAID set.

[arfett]

So if I moved this RAID-1 onto a new motherboard or different RAID controller would I have to back up the data elsewhere before setting up the RAID-1? If so that would be really pointless as I would need the hard drive to have the data in the first place so I would be unable to RAID-1 the drives again in the future.

 

Oh well, I guess I will have to manually "RAID-1" and just copy files to both drives which will be a total pain in the butt since I constantly edit/modify files.

[Angry_Games]

if you setup RAID-1, you need at least 2 drives to begin

 

if you move that RAID-1 array to another machine, here's what you have to do, and no guarantee it will work:

 

(assuming that you will not use the RAID-1 for booting the OS, but only for data storage/backup)

 

1. on the new machine, turn on the RAID controller and install the drivers within windows

 

2. hook up the drives, then go into the RAID ROM bios, and setup the RAID-1 mirror EXACTLY as you did on the original (ie if you set cluster sizes, drive orders, etc).

 

3. Boot into windows with your boot drive and RAID-1 drives hooked up and they SHOULD work

 

 

 

but as I said, no guarantees

[arfett]

I'm well aware you need two drives which is why I'm buying another. RAID-1 sounds pointless if you upgrade a lot. I'll just stick with the complete pain in the butt method as that can be guaranteed to work.