Does this count as 'raid'?

[N3rot0xin]

So something I've been wondering about is if my 'raid' setup is actually raid. I have a Venus t4S external raid enclosure. It's a bit older, but I got it for cheap with 4 HDDs included for $100. It has x4 500gb WD Caviar SE16s. Its an esata connection to my rig. Currently, 2 drives are set up in "Mirrored" mode in Windows 7 (Ultimate, 64bit), and the other two are spanned for storage. What I'm wondering about is if this is kind of raid is actually safe or helpful, and how a drive failure in the Mirrored array would be handled. Also, how would I tell which drive actually failed? Thats something I've always wondered about any kind of raid, how do you tell which drive is failed if you have more then 2?

[ChaoticWeaponry]

If the mirrors are of the spanned array, then you have RAID 10, if they're separate, then you have a RAID 0 array, and a RAID 1 array. If one of the mirrored drives failed, you just need to grab another drive and mirror the working drive. If you have software, it should tell you which drive is down, if not, just test each individual drive. You'll be able to tell quickly.

 

RAID 0 = better performance

RAID 1 = more reliability (redundancy)

RAID 10 = combined RAID 0 and 1.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong guys, I'm a little new to the whole RAID thing myself.

[DrunkenSquirrel]

Well first of all yes it is raid, the 2 in mirrored are in RAID 1

The 2 spanned ones are not quite raid, just set up to use one drive when the other runs out of space or fill each equally.

Ususally there is a light on the enclosure which will be green/red depending on whether the drive is good or not.

You would be better off putting them all in RAID 5 as it will increase your storage space whilst providing a better level of security vs your spanned volumes. (This would require you to wipe them and start from scratch though).

[N3rot0xin]

In the Disk Manager, the disks i have set up as a raid are labeled as Mirrored, and the remaining two are labeled as Spanned. Not sure how to tell beyond that what they are. But I think in windows mirrored is raid 1 and spanned is raid 0. 

 

Edit: Posted this right after you. I dont really want to wipe them all, I've got stuff on them already I'd rather not lose or have to relocate (100gb worth of torrents for starters). 

[ChaoticWeaponry]

There's spanned and striped. Spanned is just combining two drives into 1 logical drive. Striped splits the data.

 

Spanned shouldn't increase performance, striped will.