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RAID Question

Geekazoid
By Geekazoid
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Go to solution Solved by Captain_WD,

Hey there guys,

Just got a quick question. Is it possible to configure two HDDs in RAID even if one drive has files on it or would you have to format both drives to configure them both in RAID?

Thanks in advance!

Matt

 

Hey Geekazoid,
 
First off, yes, the drives should and will be formatted for safest and most optimized RAID performance when you first initialize it.
 
When choosing RAID I always think of three major things:
-how much redundancy would I like (how many drive could fail before the data becomes irreversibly lost)
-how big of a speed boost would I like (striping between a number of drives)
-how many drives and how much usable storage space would I need.
 
I believe you are going for video editing (correct me if I'm wrong), so my guess is you would be going for something that has both redundancy and speed boost. I would say RAID5 or RAID6 if you have 3 or more drives, or simply do RAID0 with a full continuous backup on a separate system. RAID10 is also a good idea, but it is HDD-hungry, giving you only half of the size of the drives to use. 
 
Depending on the RAID, there are three ways to go if the data is more than the capacity of a single drive. 
-If the RAID is configured to share the storage space (RAID0, RAID5, RAID6, RAID10, etc.), the data is distributed among all the drives from the beginning, so you can use the whole array until you fill it up.
-If you are using JBOD Span, when you are done with one drive, the data is continued on the next drive. You have your drives as one huge volume.
-If you are doing Mirroring (RAID1), one of the drives is used to make a complete copy of the other and is filled alongside the first one, so when you hit that 1TB, the array will be full as a regular HDD would hit 100%. 
 
Feel free to ask me if you happen to have any questions :)
 
Captain_WD.
Posted

Hey there guys,

Just got a quick question. Is it possible to configure two HDDs in RAID even if one drive has files on it or would you have to format both drives to configure them both in RAID?

Thanks in advance!

Matt

ON A 7 MONTH BREAK FROM THESE LTT FORUMS. WILL BE BACK ON NOVEMBER 5th.


Advisor in the 'Displays' Sub-forum | Sony Vegas Pro Enthusiast & Advisor


 † Tech Tips Christian Fellowship Founder & Coordinator †

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In 99.9% of cases you need to format both drives to configure raid. Although I do believe the Intel's Rapid Storage Technology, a software based raid controller, will allow you to make a RAID 1 without wiping 1 drive, and just copying its contents to another disk. http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-029980.htm

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Format them (usually) and most important partitions/drives used must be the same size 

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Format them (usually) and most important partitions/drives used must be the same size.

I know that. :)

ON A 7 MONTH BREAK FROM THESE LTT FORUMS. WILL BE BACK ON NOVEMBER 5th.


Advisor in the 'Displays' Sub-forum | Sony Vegas Pro Enthusiast & Advisor


 † Tech Tips Christian Fellowship Founder & Coordinator †

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I know that. :)

Cool just making sure, best of luck with the RAID

Intel Core i5 4690K @ 4.2Ghz | Evga GTX 780 Ti SC ACX with backplate | MSI Gaming 9 AC | 8GB (2x4) Corsair Vengeance Pro Silver 2400 MHz | Corsair H105 | 128GB Crucial MX100 | Toshiba 2TB | Evga 750G2 | Corsair Obsidian 750d | Be Quiet Silent Wings 2 PWM (3x140mm & 3x120mm)

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Cool just making sure, best of luck with the RAID

No worries! Nah, just planning a build is all! :)

ON A 7 MONTH BREAK FROM THESE LTT FORUMS. WILL BE BACK ON NOVEMBER 5th.


Advisor in the 'Displays' Sub-forum | Sony Vegas Pro Enthusiast & Advisor


 † Tech Tips Christian Fellowship Founder & Coordinator †

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Or you can go for more of a software raid, which generally doesnt stripe data (you dont get the faster speeds of accessing multiple drives at once) but you can do parity and lots of them allow you to use drives that already have data.

Thanks! :)

ON A 7 MONTH BREAK FROM THESE LTT FORUMS. WILL BE BACK ON NOVEMBER 5th.


Advisor in the 'Displays' Sub-forum | Sony Vegas Pro Enthusiast & Advisor


 † Tech Tips Christian Fellowship Founder & Coordinator †

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Okay, I just have two more questions:

• What is the best RAID number to use from 0 - 10?

• Say you've got two 1TB HDDs in RAID, what happens if the data capacity goes over 1TB and one of the drives fail?

ON A 7 MONTH BREAK FROM THESE LTT FORUMS. WILL BE BACK ON NOVEMBER 5th.


Advisor in the 'Displays' Sub-forum | Sony Vegas Pro Enthusiast & Advisor


 † Tech Tips Christian Fellowship Founder & Coordinator †

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Okay, I just have two more questions:

• What is the best RAID number to use from 0 - 10?

• Say you've got two 1TB HDDs in RAID, what happens if the data capacity goes over 1TB and one of the drives fail?

I like raid 10 personally but it all depends on your budget and if you really want backups.

Long time Linus fan with too many different forums to keep track of LTT's. 
 

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I like raid 10 personally but it all depends on your budget and if you really want backups.

So, is RAID 10 pretty much RAID 0 without the risks associated with RAID 0?

ON A 7 MONTH BREAK FROM THESE LTT FORUMS. WILL BE BACK ON NOVEMBER 5th.


Advisor in the 'Displays' Sub-forum | Sony Vegas Pro Enthusiast & Advisor


 † Tech Tips Christian Fellowship Founder & Coordinator †

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So, is RAID 10 pretty much RAID 0 without the risks associated with RAID 0?

RAID 10 is RAID 1 and RAID 0.

Half of data is on drive 1, and half of it is on drive 2, just like RAID 0

Drive 3 is a copy of drive 1, and drive 4 is a copy of drive 2, just like RAID 1.

A - B

| \ / |

A - B

Long time Linus fan with too many different forums to keep track of LTT's. 
 

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  • Solution

Hey there guys,

Just got a quick question. Is it possible to configure two HDDs in RAID even if one drive has files on it or would you have to format both drives to configure them both in RAID?

Thanks in advance!

Matt

 

Hey Geekazoid,
 
First off, yes, the drives should and will be formatted for safest and most optimized RAID performance when you first initialize it.
 
When choosing RAID I always think of three major things:
-how much redundancy would I like (how many drive could fail before the data becomes irreversibly lost)
-how big of a speed boost would I like (striping between a number of drives)
-how many drives and how much usable storage space would I need.
 
I believe you are going for video editing (correct me if I'm wrong), so my guess is you would be going for something that has both redundancy and speed boost. I would say RAID5 or RAID6 if you have 3 or more drives, or simply do RAID0 with a full continuous backup on a separate system. RAID10 is also a good idea, but it is HDD-hungry, giving you only half of the size of the drives to use. 
 
Depending on the RAID, there are three ways to go if the data is more than the capacity of a single drive. 
-If the RAID is configured to share the storage space (RAID0, RAID5, RAID6, RAID10, etc.), the data is distributed among all the drives from the beginning, so you can use the whole array until you fill it up.
-If you are using JBOD Span, when you are done with one drive, the data is continued on the next drive. You have your drives as one huge volume.
-If you are doing Mirroring (RAID1), one of the drives is used to make a complete copy of the other and is filled alongside the first one, so when you hit that 1TB, the array will be full as a regular HDD would hit 100%. 
 
Feel free to ask me if you happen to have any questions :)
 
Captain_WD.

If this helped you, like and choose it as best answer - you might help someone else with the same issue. ^_^
WDC Representative, http://www.wdc.com/ 

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