RAID newbie questions

[dderolph]

System: Win XP Pro, Athlon XP 2200, 512MB RAM, ECS K7S5A Pro Mboard, 80GB WD HD. My hard drive is partitioned, with Win XP on F.

I have another 80GB WD HD that is not being used and am interested in trying to setup RAID 1. I would, of course, buy a controller card to install in a PCI slot. Here are some questions I have:

Must Win XP be on C?
Will I have to reinstall Windows?
Do I connect both drives to the controller card, or one to it and the other to the motherboard?
With a PCI controller card, do I still need a BIOS that supports RAID?
Do I need to create partitions on the second drive equal to the primary drive?
Will I need change any BIOS setting concerning first boot device?

 

[Madwand1]

I suggest separating the RAID array from the OS for simplicity. This would require another drive. Then you should move the important stuff to the array, and ideally do an external backup of it in addition.

This would be easier to set up and maintain.

Backup > RAID in general, so another option would be to get an external enclosure, and use the second drive for a periodic backup instead of RAID 1.

 

[Nothinman]

Backup > RAID in general

Backups and RAID aren't even comparable.

 

[dderolph]

Originally posted by: Madwand1
I suggest separating the RAID array from the OS for simplicity.

I have no idea what that means.

 

[Nothinman]

I have no idea what that means.

Install the OS on a seperate, single drive and use the RAID array just for your data. But unless you're using Windows software RAID (and you can't do RAID1 with Windows software RAID without using Server or higher) it won't make it any easier or harder.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Install the OS on a seperate, single drive and use the RAID array just for your data. But unless you're using Windows software RAID (and you can't do RAID1 with Windows software RAID without using Server or higher) it won't make it any easier or harder.

I think it'll be easier to create an array in addition to the existing system instead of installing one underneath it. Similarly, in the future you can reconfigure, screw up, etc., the array without breaking the OS at the same time. I'm not sure where you're coming from, but separating OS and RAID data is fairly typical for such reasons. (And while the OS itself is installed under RAID 1 sometimes, it's generally done as a separate array from the data.)

 

[dderolph]

Well, I guess I somewhat get the gist of the notion of "create an array in addition to the existing system" but I'll have to do much more reading on this before I know how to go about doing this.

I gather we're talking about more than two hard drives to do this. Is that right?

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: dderolph
Well, I guess I somewhat get the gist of the notion of "create an array in addition to the existing system" but I'll have to do much more reading on this before I know how to go about doing this.

I gather we're talking about more than two hard drives to do this. Is that right?

Yes, generally this means one drive for the OS, etc., and at least another two drives for a new RAID array.

Setting up a non-OS RAID array should be fairly simple, and similar to installing another drive. You need to install the drives, define the array and install the software and drivers in the OS level (the details depend on the RAID implementation). Once the array's defined and the drivers are installed, the array would appear as an empty drive to the OS. At that point you could partition and format it, copy over data, etc., just as you would with a new empty drive.

Setting up a RAID array under an existing OS installation can be tricky, and also risky when you're working at that level for the first time -- there's a chance that something will screw up and you'll lose your data / won't be able to boot / etc. RAID 1 however is the friendliest of RAID configurations, because it's very close to a simple drive, so you might be able to get away with this without too much difficulty.

However, it's generally advisable to not do this sort of stuff in-place without a full backup, esp. when just starting out, so then you'd be back to needing another drive or something for the backup.

If you're willing to wipe all your data and reinstall everything, then there's also little risk -- nothing to lose -- and you could just start out following your RAID controller's instructions for this stuff -- generally creating the RAID array first (like installing a new drive), then supplying the drivers to the OS during installation.