Help with building a raid?

[a29384]

I have a few questions. I have 2 500gb hdds. I wanna wipe them and build a raid. 

First question

Is it safe to wipe the drives with debian? Idk if there's virus or anything in the drives. They used to hold windows and was gone wipe them with a tool on debian, if you know any other way or if that's safe lemme know. 

2nd question

I want to use the raid for storage. And I don't NEED it to be actively running all the time. So what I was wondering if I could just plug these 2 drives in, make the raid, and then disconnect them. Like if I plug it back in at startup will the raid break? Will there be data loss? Does it need to stay plugged in and active at all times? 

[Electronics Wizardy]

What is your goal with this raid? More space? Speed? Redundancy?

 

You don't really need to do a seperate wipe of the drives, just tell the raid setup to wipe any existing data from the drives. 

 

What OS are you making the raid from?

 

Normally raid wants the drives connected unless there is a failure. If your goal is to backup your data there are likely better programs for that.

[a29384]

22 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Probably more space and redundancy. So a raid needs to be plugged in always? 

___________________________________

What is your goal with this raid? More space? Speed? Redundancy?

 

You don't really need to do a seperate wipe of the drives, just tell the raid setup to wipe any existing data from the drives. 

 

What OS are you making the raid from?

 

Normally raid wants the drives connected unless there is a failure. If your goal is to backup your data there are likely better programs for that.

 

[whispous]

You cannot achieve better speed AND redundancy. And you mention "keeping them plugged in", are these USB drives?