2 sata drives is spanning array

[Okasa]

im curious, i have 2 320 barracudas in a spanning array (which raid # is that?) anyways lets say one of the drives dies, can i hook up the one that still works alone and will i be able to get the data off? if so, do i need to take out the array in the raid array manager first? i mean, cuz if one dies and both data is gone, why use a spanning array, i might as wel use raid0(striping) so it would preform better. i assume that hooking up only one of them would be fine, that it would still have all the data on it....tho it was formmatted so anyways now im rambling....whats the story?

 

[corkyg]

Spanning is not a clear term - but it comes close to striping. That is RAID 0. In that case, the data is constantly divided between the two drives. In that case, if either drive dies, then the data is not recoverable on EITHER drive.

The other basic array is RAID 1 - and that uses mirroring. In that case, the data is duplicated on each drive.

If you have a pair of 320 GB drives, RAID 0 would see them as a 640 GB drive. RAID 1 would see them as a 320 GB drive.

There are other arrays - but those are the two basics. The term "spanning" can actually go both ways - it is confusing.

 

[Stiganator]

By spanning I would think he means JBOD. It doesn't divide data like RAID 0, so I guess technically you should be ok, but I'm not sure if it writes the end of the partition to the other disk. Anyone else know for sure?

 

[Okasa]

yea that was what i was worried about, either the first hd being formatted with info at the start about its total drive capacity or something on the 2nd drive at the end storing some other info.

 

[corkyg]

JBOD would be OK - but when you boot, right after POST you should see your RAID array status - and have a keyboard entry to make changes. That will tell you what you presently have. No need to guess.

My concern is this - it takes some time an effort to create a RAID array after installing the SATA drives. It would be very odd to gothrough all of that and not know what you did. Plus, as I said - it tells you on every reboot.

 

[Okasa]

aha, finally, i looked at wiki on raids, but didnt know to look for JBOD. i found a good explination, and apparently it isnt a problem, if a drive fails, only that data is lost:

Wiki quote:

One advantage JBOD has over RAID 0 is in the case of drive failure. Whereas in RAID 0, failure of a single drive will usually result in the loss of all data in the array, in a JBOD array only the data on the affected drive is lost, and the data on surviving drives will remain readable. However, JBOD does not carry the performance benefits which are associated with RAID 0.