RAID help

[GT]

I've never setup raid before and want to know if the following is
possible...

I currently have a 1TB samsung SATA drive with a 50GB primary partition,
which is my C: system drive (WinXP_32_ProSP3). The remaining 900+GB is my
data drive.containing HD video work, games, photos etc.

If I buy a second, identical hard drive, can I configure them as a mirror
with the above 2 partitions matched on each? I'm looking for data security,
not a speed boost, but that would be a nice bonus! Is it possible to
partition up 2 mirrored drives?

My ASrock 4coredual-VSTA motherboard has sata built-in and there is an
option for it in the BIOS, but I would rather not have to reformat the
drive. Would I need to re-format the drive? What happens when 1 of the
drives finally fails - can I just replace the faulty drive and have the
system copy the existing one to the replacement one?

Thanks in advance.

 

[GT]

I've never setup raid before and want to know if the following is
possible...

I currently have a 1TB samsung SATA drive with a 50GB primary partition,
which is my C: system drive (WinXP_32_ProSP3). The remaining 900+GB is my
data drive.containing HD video work, games, photos etc.

If I buy a second, identical hard drive, can I configure them as a mirror
with the above 2 partitions matched on each? I'm looking for data
security, not a speed boost, but that would be a nice bonus! Is it
possible to partition up 2 mirrored drives?

My ASrock 4coredual-VSTA motherboard has sata built-in and there is an
option for it in the BIOS, but I would rather not have to reformat the
drive. Would I need to re-format the drive? What happens when 1 of the
drives finally fails - can I just replace the faulty drive and have the
system copy the existing one to the replacement one?

Thanks in advance.

Sorry, that was a bit of a panic post. I have hunted through the setup CD
for my motherboard and found a PDF manual for configuring RAID options.
Looks like it is pretty easy to set up and you have the option of keeping
all the data on the source hard disk - the system will copy the data to the
mirror drive for you. I just need to figure out if I am allowed to have 2
partitions on the mirrorred drives.

 

[Gerard Bok]

I've never setup raid before and want to know if the following is
possible...

I currently have a 1TB samsung SATA drive with a 50GB primary partition,
which is my C: system drive (WinXP_32_ProSP3). The remaining 900+GB is my
data drive.containing HD video work, games, photos etc.

If I buy a second, identical hard drive, can I configure them as a mirror
with the above 2 partitions matched on each? I'm looking for data security,
not a speed boost, but that would be a nice bonus! Is it possible to
partition up 2 mirrored drives?

For this type of use it may be wise to consider another option:
not RAID but replication to an external drive.

Many types of disaster strike a RAID pair equally (virus, user
error, fire, theft, corrupted filesystem, burned hardware).
Storing a copy of your data on an external device may prevent
many more problems. (Especially if you either alternate 2
external units and/or store the external unit somewhere else.)

Free software for this purpose: e.g.
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

 

[GT]

For this type of use it may be wise to consider another option:
not RAID but replication to an external drive.

Many types of disaster strike a RAID pair equally (virus, user
error, fire, theft, corrupted filesystem, burned hardware).
Storing a copy of your data on an external device may prevent
many more problems. (Especially if you either alternate 2
external units and/or store the external unit somewhere else.)

Free software for this purpose: e.g.
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

Very useful link. Thank you.

 

[Gerard Bok]

Another thing to consider, for your video work, is that
it is much better to have at least two separate drives.
You want to be to be able to input data from one master
drive into a process, and output from the process into
a different master drive.

Very true.
But don't confuse this with my advise regarding the use of an
external drive
You won't be happy editing video if a USB drive is involved!
(Internal drives usualy run at double the speed of a USB
connected drive.)

 

[GT]

Very true.
But don't confuse this with my advise regarding the use of an
external drive
You won't be happy editing video if a USB drive is involved!
(Internal drives usualy run at double the speed of a USB
connected drive.)

My internal hard drive will be more like 10x USB! Samsung SATA 1TB does
about 70-80MBps USB will be around 10.

 

[GT]

[snip]

As for having multiple partitions on your RAID array it
isn't a problem, the RAID controller works at a lower level
and the first drive is simply duplicated to the second one
(even if it had no partitions yet).

Brilliant - thanks.