Noob Raid 1 Question: BIOS or Disk Management??

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THM01

THM01

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Mar 28, 2015
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Hello! I've got my OS on an SSD, two 2TB WD Black's (one with stuff on it that's backed up on another drive, and one that is brand new and unformatted), and two 1 TB WD Black's.
I'm trying to make the two 2TB drives configured in a simple Raid 1 mirror for redundancy. I don't quite get how to do that- some articles say do stuff in the BIOS and others (like this one) say that you go to disk management (which seems way easier). How do I do it, and is there a benefit of doing it one way or the other?

Thanks!
THM
 
Solution
F
I heard this over and over... RAID is not a back up. This statement is a debate-able, because RAID1 can be the back up if you do it correctly, also RAID1 is ALWAYS better than a SINGLE drive, in a sense of reliable.

So to get a back up from RAID1 do this

- Create a RAID1- It is a TWO drives set up but with ONE member is in tray-less mobile rack, so it can be hot swap. <== edit

There are plenty model out there, but I particular like the tray-less mobile rack with fan underneath of it to keep HDD cool
Once you have a set up as the way you like, simply REMOVE the HDD in the tray-less and replace it with a NEW/BLANK HDD, while the system is running
- The removed HDD is your BACKUP as to the minute you remove it, and the newly HDD...
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Thanks so much for a response! Is this understanding correct: so you're saying that the only difference between the bios/disk management is the time it takes for them to "start working together" the very first (and only) time I tell them to be configured as raid 1? Is that what you meant by "faster"? I plan to just delete all the stuff off the 2TB that's in there (do I "format" or "delete volume")?
Thanks again so much for help, I'm just getting into anything to do with RAID and am deathly afraid of hard drives failing on me
 
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Few things.

1) Need to know exact motherboard make and model
2) Need to know what version of windows you are running as Software RAID in windows is only done if you have Pro or Higher. Home Premium will not do software RAID
3) Remember that RAID is NOT a backup! It is simple redundancy if one drive fails the other kicks in. If it is Important data this is what I do.

I have a single 2TB drive and then a RAID 0 of 2TB Drives giving me a 4TB Drive. I have a backup 2TB drive that I keep in my safe all the time except when i pull it out to do a backup. Same for the RAID 0. I have a single 4TB drive and i pull out to do a backup when ever i update it then put it back in the safe when I am done. THAT is a backup. a RAID 1 is not a backup because if the PSU frys and takes everything with it then you are SOL. It is ALWAYS best to have an Offline Backup.

If you still want to go though with a RAID 1 get me the info for questions 1 and 2
 
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no, if you do a raid through the bios every time your computer writes to the disk it will be a bit faster then doing it through disk management, however your motherboard needs to support rid on the hardware level and you will most likely need to reinstall your operating system. if i remember right you should delete all partitions and volumes on the hdd then when both of them get to this point you should be able to right click the drive and create a new raid 1 volume.
 
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raid 1 create 2 identical copys of the data making one a backup.
 
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Drtweak:
1) AsRock z97 extreme4
2) Windows 7 professional
3) Yep, can't afford a nice backup solution for another couple months so I'm going the redundancy route in the meantime then going to add some NAS later

cdabc123: okay, any good guide on how to do it through bios?

Thanks again!
 
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And if one drives get corrupt so does the other. If the PSU frys the whole PC everything goes.

A backup should be OFFLINE. RAID is redundancy to keep you chugging along in an enviroment where keeping a server or NAS or something up all the time is a must. You STILL need a backup!

I have seen RAID 1's take a dump! Even me personally I had a RAID 1 get corrupt. All my DATA GONE. NEVER AGAIN will I do a RAID one for personal use there is just no need. You need a sepearate disk to backup to and something perferably offline. I service a LOT of clients with Server. Now we do a lot of RAID 1 yes but EVERYONE has Backups. The RAID is just incase the drive goes they keep going. You may have two copies but a lot of us here don't see RAID as a backup.

Up to you THMO1. If it is valuable data I wouldn't do a RAID 1 unless you have another drive that is backing that up, otherwise i would just by an external enclosure for one of the drives and just use a program to backup your stuff to it on a weekly basis or how every often you want. I lost 2 TB of data one time because of a RAID 1 corruption and I had to rebuild everything. Everything recovered was unusable. You don't need a NAS or anything fancy or expensive software to have a proper backup.
 
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I heard this over and over... RAID is not a back up. This statement is a debate-able, because RAID1 can be the back up if you do it correctly, also RAID1 is ALWAYS better than a SINGLE drive, in a sense of reliable.

So to get a back up from RAID1 do this

- Create a RAID1- It is a TWO drives set up but with ONE member is in tray-less mobile rack, so it can be hot swap. <== edit

There are plenty model out there, but I particular like the tray-less mobile rack with fan underneath of it to keep HDD cool
Once you have a set up as the way you like, simply REMOVE the HDD in the tray-less and replace it with a NEW/BLANK HDD, while the system is running
- The removed HDD is your BACKUP as to the minute you remove it, and the newly HDD inserted will be image from the remain HDD.. don't worry it may take hrs but it will get done.

Now this is OK but there are couples minor issues to this Main board BIOS RAID.

Issue #1 - Compatible and future proof
The back up is ONLY works with the same motherboard, same RAID engine, because the OS is ran under that particular RAID engine, w/o that your back up HDD can not boot properly.
If your Main board fried and you get a new Main Board the chance of your HDD boots and runs as normal is very slim due to the OS is looking for the RAID drivers of your fried Mother board

Issue #2 - Not 100% safe while rebuilding , mirroring
While the RAID imaging to the new HDD, if the remain HDD failed then your system will go down with it, because there is no more redundancy. You just removed the redundancy HDD as the BACKUP drives.

Solve issue #1
BTW please do not call Main Board's BIOS raid is a hardware RAID, because it is NOT a hardware raid but rather "hardware assist raid" this still uses your host CPU's resource, where hardware is not and all the RAID calculation does not rely on host CPU
Use the driver-less hardware RAID
http://www.datoptic.com/ec/sataiii-to-dual-sata3-raid-controller.html

This is a stand alone RAID1/0 6Gb, when set as RAID1, It connects to Main board under AHCI, the RAID volume show up as a regular SATA drive. And since it is used AHCI driver/protocol, therefore the back-up (removed from the RAID1) can PLUG INTO ANY Main board and IT WILL BOOT as lonag as the BIOS's SATA set as AHCI, even you change from Intel to AMD mother board or via versus. You may have to update all the new drivers of video, Ethernet, Audio...

You will have your computer back in minutes, it the old one is fried

Solve issue #1 and #2
Create a three drives mirror volume from SPM394 or SPM393, with this mode your system has TWO redundant HDD instead of ONE as to regular RAID1
Since SPM393 and SPM394 are driver-less stand alone RAID and using AHCI protocol, it has the same behave as the above raid

With a HDD removed for back up, there are two HDD in mirror mode in your system, so if one died while it's imaging, it's OK, because there still is ONE more redundancy HDD left

So there, pick your solution 🙂

Edit: To clarify for who thinks RAID1 is a ONE drive set up 😀
 
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^^^ Yup. I mean Make a RAID 1 with on drive? I don't know to many devices that will make a RAID 1 with only one drive, but then again I next to never deal with Onboard RAID and always with Server grade Hardware RAID cards which usually don't allow it. They allow RAID 0 with one drive though. On top of that every time you swap the drive out it 1) Has to then rebuild the RAID, taxing BOTH drives and the OS slowing EVERYTHING down and 2) You have a great risk of breaking the SATA drive connectors this way 2) If the drive is removed before the RAID 1 syncs then you are left with an un-usable backup. The guy is better off using two hard drives to use Windows Backup with or another backup program or make an image of them using Macrium or something. Just asking for trouble if you only use RAID 1 for backup purposes.
 
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