Jump to content

Can you RAID 1 a drive without clearing its contents?

Alir
By Alir
in Storage Devices
 Share
Posted

So you have a 1 TB hard drive and a few years after purchase, you fear it might stop working.

 

Can you then buy another 1TB hard drive and shove it into a RAID 1 configuration without having to clear the contents of the old drive?

 

Alternatively, are there any software solutions out there, preferably open source, that allow you to keep the contents of two directories/folders/locations in sync with each other, so you can essentially back up the essential files of one drive onto another.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

So you have a 1 TB hard drive and a few years after purchase, you fear it might stop working.

 

Can you then buy another 1TB hard drive and shove it into a RAID 1 configuration without having to clear the contents of the old drive?

 

Alternatively, are there any software solutions out there, preferably open source, that allow you to keep the contents of two directories/folders/locations in sync with each other, so you can essentially back up the essential files of one drive onto another.

No. When setting up RAID both drives have to be formatted

"Rawr XD"

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Thanks and what about:

 

Alternatively, are there any software solutions out there, preferably open source, that allow you to keep the contents of two directories/folders/locations in sync with each other, so you can essentially back up the essential files of one drive onto another.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Yes, there is a way and I have used it a few times. It all boils down to the chipset on your mobo and the SATA mode you start off with.

 

So what's your chipset and current SATA mode?

I roll with sigs off so I have no idea what you're advertising.

 

This is NOT the signature you are looking for.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Hello if you have an AMD Chipset than yes you can do this by installing the AMD RAIDXpert software in which you can "mark a drive for RAID use" without yet RAIDing it

  1. Plug the new drive in
  2. mark it for RAID use
  3. move all the data to the drive
  4. RAID the old drive to the new one which will duplicate the data from the new drive to the old drive while formatting the old drive (which is fine because the data is one the new drive)
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Storage Devices

×