Setting up raid 1

[msvelev]

Hi everyone,

 

I have 2 WD Blue drives that I want to set up in RAID 1. I have a couple of questions about it.

1) Should I do it through the motherboard (Asus z97-p), or through the windows drive manager (mirror drive option)?

2) Can it be done without losing data on the "primary" drive?

 

Thanks!

[Captain_WD]

19 hours ago, msvelev said:

~snip~

Hi there

 

First, I'd like to start by saying that WD Blue drives aren't recommended nor designed for RAID-type of usage. These drives are recommended for everyday mainstream regular usage and simple computing. They don't have the necessary features for a stable and secure performance such as TLER and firmware additions (unlike WD Red drives which are designed specifically for that purpose).  

 

That being said, for regular consumer usage there won't be any significant difference. Some major differences between hardware-based RAID (handled by your motherboard's controller) and software-based RAID (handled by the OS) is that the OS-based is easier to recover in case of failure but less secure and uses computer resources while the hardware-based array is handled solely by the controller and doesn't use other resources but is tied to the motherboard and in case of failure it's really hard to recover the array. 

 

If either of those WD Blue drives is holding your OS you would need to use the motherboard controller as they will both be formatted during the procedure and you won't have an OS to set up the RAID. This will also clear any data on both drives so a backup is strongly recommended. 

 

What are you aiming to achieve? If you are looking for data safety I'd recommend to consider an external backup solution instead of RAID redundancy (remember - RAID does not equal backup, only redundancy). 

 

Feel free to ask if there are any questions! 

 

Captain_WD.

[msvelev]

2 hours ago, Captain_WD said:

Hi there

 

First, I'd like to start by saying that WD Blue drives aren't recommended nor designed for RAID-type of usage. These drives are recommended for everyday mainstream regular usage and simple computing. They don't have the necessary features for a stable and secure performance such as TLER and firmware additions (unlike WD Red drives which are designed specifically for that purpose).  

 

That being said, for regular consumer usage there won't be any significant difference. Some major differences between hardware-based RAID (handled by your motherboard's controller) and software-based RAID (handled by the OS) is that the OS-based is easier to recover in case of failure but less secure and uses computer resources while the hardware-based array is handled solely by the controller and doesn't use other resources but is tied to the motherboard and in case of failure it's really hard to recover the array. 

 

If either of those WD Blue drives is holding your OS you would need to use the motherboard controller as they will both be formatted during the procedure and you won't have an OS to set up the RAID. This will also clear any data on both drives so a backup is strongly recommended. 

 

What are you aiming to achieve? If you are looking for data safety I'd recommend to consider an external backup solution instead of RAID redundancy (remember - RAID does not equal backup, only redundancy). 

 

Feel free to ask if there are any questions! 

 

Captain_WD.

HI! Thanks for the answer. 

My OS is on an SSD and not on those drives. After a bit of thought, I'll put one of them in another pc and schedule a backup. It seems like the better solution. I just want to keep my pictures safe.

Thanks! 

[Captain_WD]

1 hour ago, msvelev said:

~snip~

If you are going for data protection, I'd suggest to keep your photos at two separate places so you have a true backup. 

Having a Mirrored array would provide safety in case one of the drives goes out, but if something happens to the enclosure you would lose all the data. I would suggest getting two external portable enclosures and place the two drive separately and store identical copies of the photos on both of them. This way you will have a secure backup of everything even if something happens with the one of the drives/enclosures.

 

Captain_WD.

[vanished]

And, if you are comfortable with cloud storage, and have either a small enough amount of data or a large enough amount of money, something like Microsoft OneDrive, or Google Drive, etc. that will give you off-site storage is great for protection against fire, flood, robbery, etc.