Need help with raid/data storing

[smocchi]

I have current gen desktop with only 240Gb SSD soo I pulled two 750Gb HDDs from my old laptop(about 3 years old).My question is how and if I can make a raid with just those two disks(keeping it also portable) and have windows and programs installed on my SSD?

I have asus pro gaming z170 with latest bios(if that helps)

 

[13thmonkey]

not 'and portable' at the same time, unless you buy a housing to put them in that does raid itself.

however raid is not a backup, raid is an availability and uptime solution, so what are you trying to achieve.

 

[Onus]

The short version is, in the SATA settings in your BIOS, you need to change it from AHCI to RAID. As the machine boots, you should see a screen with a keypress (typically Ctrl-I) to go into a setup mode that lets you define the RAID. RAID0 stripes data across multiple identical drives, with capacity equal to the number of drives * the smallest one; a pair of 750GB drives will give you 1.5GB. Performance is typically faster. RAID1 mirrors one drive onto the other. This protects against drive failure, but not against data corruption or controller failure (so you still need to back it up). Reads may be faster, but writes will be slower.
It is unusual for a laptop to have two hard drives. Were they already in a RAID in the laptop?

 

[drtweak]

As 13thmonkey said you need a protable RAID enclosure. something like this

http://www.amazon.com/CineRAID-CR-H212-Powered-Portable-Enclosure/dp/B0096E3MTC

Also as he said what is it your are trying to achieve?

Also do NOT change any ACHI/ATA/RAID settings on your motherboard as it will render windows unbootable unless you do the proper changes first, but in your case you won't be doing any of that since you want it portable.

And may laptops can carry 2 hard drives. Pretty much all the 17 Inch HP laptops, a lot of high end gaming/workstation laptops carry two hard drives so people can either 1) have lots of storage or 2) be able to do RAID 1/0

 

[Onus]

Going from IDE to AHCI requires changes, but going from AHCI to RAID on a single drive should not need any changes in Windows. A single drive would be running in AHCI mode anyway. I don't remember if I've actually done it that way (I may have started at "RAID" before actually setting up a RAID, using just a single system drive), so let me know if you have specific experience that there are problems.

 

[13thmonkey]

It's just a matter of giving windows the raid drivers, but it requires a little prep.

 

[drtweak]

gotta do the registry changes when ever go form IDE to ACHI or IDE to RAID or RAID to AHCI or AHCI to RAID. Going DOWN to IDE does not require the Registry edits which are easy but from what he wants the a portable raid enclosure is what he needed if he want's it portable.

 

[13thmonkey]

gotta do the registry changes when ever go form IDE to ACHI or IDE to RAID or RAID to AHCI or AHCI to RAID. Going DOWN to IDE does not require the Registry edits which are easy but from what he wants the a portable raid enclosure is what he needed if he want's it portable.

Agreed, the portableness is a concern