Raid 1 setup HELP

[Spudbilly]

Hello ppl,

 

I currently have 1 hdd WD Blue 7200rpm as my storage drive. My OS and apps are on an ssd already. So this hdd just has pics, vids, movies and documents.

 

I just got another empty hdd drive that is exactly the same as the hdd I own. Both at WD blue 1TB 7200 rpm 64mb cache.

 

I want to put them into RAID 1 for safer storage in case one drive fails.

 

I have never done RAID before. Do I have to empty the contents of the current drive onto my external drive and format both...then setup RAID, or can I just leave the current drive alone -->then configure RAID 1 and it will automatically write the contents of drive 1 onto drive 2????

 

Some help would be appreciated. I only have a 500gb external drive to help and I have 550gb of data stored. So I would rather not have to buy a external drive just to help me configure RAID and I would also rather not have to delete 50GB worth of data just to make room for backing up the drive, or lose data in the backup/configure RAID process.

 

Thanks for your responses!

[SCHISCHKA]

i put WD blue in RAID 1 and they continuously dropped out of the array. They are not made for this role

[Spudbilly]

1 minute ago, SCHISCHKA said:

i put WD blue in RAID 1 and they continuously dropped out of the array. They are not made for this role

Any clue why they are not sufficient for such a role? Are you certain it is the WD Blue line of product that is the problem?

[Spudbilly]

This is what I got from the WD website.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Support for WD desktop drives in a RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration

Answer ID 996

An operating system (such as Windows 7, Fedora Linux, and Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard)) is software, consisting of programs and data, that manages a computers hardware. The OS also provides an environment where applications and services are able to run.

This answer explains that we support using a WD Blue, Green, or Black drive in a RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration.*END

<-- -->

WD desktop hard drives (WD Blue, Green, or Black) have been tested and are recommended for consumer RAID applications when using the drives in a RAID 0 (Stripe) or RAID 1 (Mirror) configuration.

However, there are several things to keep in mind when setting up a RAID with these drives:

 

 

Note:

Before testing your drive, WD recommends creating a backup of any data on the hard drive, removing the drive from the RAID controller, and attaching the drive to a standard SATA controller. For specific instructions on how to use our diagnostic utilities, please see the links below:

• WD only recommends using a Desktop drive in a RAID array with no more than two (2) drives (Raid 0 or Raid 1 only).
• WD is unable to provide direct technical support for setting up RAID arrays for either hardware or software arrays.
• Support for your RAID array can be obtained from one of several sources:
  1. If you are setting up a hardware array it is best to contact the manufacturer of your RAID controller or motherboard manufacturer.
  2. If you are setting up a software array you can contact the publisher of your RAID software.
  3. The publisher of your Operating System (OS) (Usually Apple, or Microsoft) can provide support for the use of a hardware or software RAID configuration within that OS.
• Before connecting a drive to an array, you should verify that the drive is functioning properly. Please use Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS (floppy), or Windows Data Lifeguard Diagnostics to perform a test on the drive prior to installation.
  • Answer ID 59: How to check an internal drive for defects, problems, corruption, or a power issue
  • Answer ID 940: How to test a drive for problems using Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows

 

Critical: WD Blue, Green, Red or Black hard drives are not recommended for and are not warranted for use in RAID environments utilizing Enterprise HBAs and/or expanders and in multi-bay chassis, as they are not designed for, nor tested in, these specific types of RAID applications. For all Business Critical RAID applications, please consider WD’s Enterprise Hard Drives that are specifically designed with RAID-specific, time-limited error recovery (TLER), are tested extensively in 24x7 RAID applications, and include features like enhanced RAFF technology and thermal extended burn-in testing.

[SCHISCHKA]

2 minutes ago, Spudbilly said:

Any clue why they are not sufficient for such a role? Are you certain it is the WD Blue line of product that is the problem?

this should explain it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_recovery_control

drives made for NAS (WD Red) do not stop when there is a read error. WD blue will stop on an error and the raid controller will think its dead and kick it out of the array. What I noticed was at least once a day my array was rebuilding itself

[Spudbilly]

Looks like it is not reliable enough for me. I may just use the drive as a backup drive for the OS and for my files with no RAID array. Unless anyone else can convince me otherwise.

[davidna2002]

not sure if someone answered the question that you would lose all data on the original disk when you went to configure the RAID so you'd need to move the data off.  if the info to save is really valuable you'd NOT want to use WD Blue but WD Black (preferred) or WD Red.  However if the data is really precious use cloud storage like Google Drive, iCloud, Sky Drive etc.  prices are very cheap and may be free if you don't have quite 1TB worth of data.  And lastly after being in IT server and storage roles for a long time RAID is still not 100% safe especially if the RAID controller dies which can nuke both drives.

[Spudbilly]

Thanks for the answers guys. I was hoping that RAID 1 would serve me well for redundant storage, but alas I'm not going to go out and buy new hard drives just for RAID. I think I will just use the 2nd drive to backups of everything.

 

Again Thanks