RAID 1 and an interesting idea

[NeedsHelps]

I built my father a computer for his office that uses an SSD for the OS, and two HHDs in RAID 1 for his storage (he had a HDD failure before this, and wanted RAID 1 as a safety net). Today, we purchased parts to build another computer for his other office. My question is whether or not I will be able to use one of the old RAID 1 HDDs in order to copy over all the data. I'm not even sure this would work, but I basically wanted to take one of the old RAID 1 HHDs out, and put a new HDD into its place (in the old computer). The new computer would have an old HDD and a new HDD. My hope is that the old drives will copy to the new drives, but I'm not sure if this method is even possible. Its just an idea I had. Also, the old HDDs are only about a year old, still pretty new.

For illustrative purposes:


The traditional way:

Old PC
Old HDD 1
Old HDD 2

New PC
New HDD A
New HDD B


My Idea:

Old PC
Old HDD 1
New HDD A

New PC
Old HDD 2
New HDD B


The hope is that the existing data would just mirror onto the new drives that would be present in both systems. But, I'm not sure how plausible this idea is. It makes sense on paper, but it's always different in practice.

Thoughts?

 

[fzabkar]

I'm not certain how the RAID metadata would transfer from the old PC to the new one. I think I would play safe and use the old PC to rebuild both HDDs A and B from either HDD 1 or 2.

 

[giantbucket]

ideally there would be a third external backup hard drive (portable 2.5" type) that would contain backups of the "old PC" data in a simple non-RAID format. that would be used to then copy-paste the data onto the "new PC" hard drive set.

RAID is not a backup. a second / third drive is a backup.

 

[FireWire2]

99% it will work... Because RAID block info is in the HDD...
Unless you have a REALLY odd raid engine, then it wont rebuild.

I would do this - HOT SWAP the drive instead of shut down the system and swap drive
- Remove OLD HDD from OLD COMP
- HOT PLUG the NEW HDD to the OLD COMP
- Let it rebuild

Install the OS into new computer
- Make sure the RAID engine used in the BIOS
- Install the OLD HDD into NEW COMP
- HOT PLUG the NEW HDD to NEW COMP
- It should be rebuild

You should be able to use both computer. while it rebuild

 

[NeedsHelps]

99% it will work... Because RAID block info is in the HDD...
Unless you have a REALLY odd raid engine, then it wont rebuild.

I would do this - HOT SWAP the drive instead of shut down the system and swap drive
- Remove OLD HDD from OLD COMP
- HOT PLUG the NEW HDD to the OLD COMP
- Let it rebuild

Install the OS into new computer
- Make sure the RAID engine used in the BIOS
- Install the OLD HDD into NEW COMP
- HOT PLUG the NEW HDD to NEW COMP
- It should be rebuild

You should be able to use both computer. while it rebuild

Yeah, I was planning on trying something similar anyway. I'm just not too keen on hotplugging the drives though. Hopefully it won't mess with the RAID since the computer will be on.

 

[FireWire2]

LOL - RAID1/10/5/6 design for hot swap and if you look at the SATA HDD's connector you can see it made for hot plug - power gold pads are longer than the data