RAID 1 Question

[Jeffrey903]

I currently have a 400GB hard drive, which I use as my primary hard drive. I currently backup the most important files, but would like to have RAID 1 to keep everything safe in case of a hard drive failure. However, I was wondering, if I were to buy another 400GB hard drive and setup a RAID 1 array, would the data on my current drive stay in tack or do I lose all of the data by creating a RAID 1 array?

If the data remains, how do I let the computer know which drive I want to use as the source (as it could be possible that I want it the other way around, where I use the blank drive as the source and it deletes all data from my current drive, the computer doesn't know).

I am going to be setting up RAID through the BIOS.

Thanks for all of your help!

 

[hennessy1]

The data is gone. When you create the raid 1 it will clear the data on the disk. As for the hdd you use(like the one you your self writes to not just the mirroring effect of raid 1) I believe that it goes by which sata port it is plugged into the drive that is plugged into sata 1 will be the one you use or with ever and then say your other drive is sata 2 then thats the mirror drive. I am almost positive on this. (As for the data part there might be a program or something that can prevent that but I dont know)

 

[ch33zw1z]

Originally posted by: hennessy1
The data is gone. When you create the raid 1 it will clear the data on the disk. As for the hdd you use(like the one you your self writes to not just the mirroring effect of raid 1) I believe that it goes by which sata port it is plugged into the drive that is plugged into sata 1 will be the one you use or with ever and then say your other drive is sata 2 then thats the mirror drive. I am almost positive on this. (As for the data part there might be a program or something that can prevent that but I dont know)

woah woah woah, not so fast!!

reference this thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2057910&enterthread=y

You are correct about SATA ports, you have to keep track of what is what...or you may just toast your data.