Yet another computer question. Is it possible to install two new drives in raid 1, to an existing setup of an SSD for os, and a HDD currently used for storage? I want the existing discs to stay non-raid, only the new ones to be a raid 1 array.
In my mind, if I remove all drives, install the two new ones, enable raid in bios, configure it for the two new drives, then refit the existing, it should all work?
I want to do it with hardware, not software though, does this change anything? Sorry, I have zero experience with raid.
I haven't used a hardware RAID controller, always done it via software, even on HP Microserver NAS.
Software RAID is preferred these days, as modern CPUs are so powerful the extra processing is barely a blip, especially at HDD speeds. Beyond that, they tend to be more recoverable.
Hardware RAID with a proper HBA is still sometimes used, but IMO doesn't really offer advantages.
FakeRAID (the one you can "enable in BIOS") is crap, the worst of both worlds, and generally should not be used. There's no hardware offload, it just runs on the CPU via software drivers. About the only case you might want it is if you're dual booting. It's basically software RAID tied to the hardware.
110% this
Also OP, repeat after me, "RAID IS NOT A BACKUP!"
Also OP, repeat after me, "RAID IS NOT A BACKUP!"
I'm aware, I have multiple backups for important things, thanks though, this is just another level.
Thank you so much for this, I had assumed motherboard/chipset raid was "hardware raid". Great info, I will just use windows raid.
missed it by that much! (which was quite a bit, actually…)
That site is fantastic.
I used to be a SME server guy, and the number of emergencies I got called out to from all data lost because of the not testing backups especially is a huge one.
Ppl assumed if they changed the tapes (late 90s early 00s) it was all good - often the jobs weren't even running.
These thinking RAID is a backup or other bad backup practices (single or alternate days only, not testing etc) were always from the mobs too tight to spend properly to buy adequate hardware or service contracts to let us to do things like check their backups actually worked.
Then of course if was "our fault" everything went pair shaped.
This is why I like the 3-2-1-1-0 backup rule. It takes the original 3-2-1 rule:
And adds:
That last point is one of the most important points. You can put in the worlds greatest backup scheme, only to find that some link in the chain was broken: you gave it a wrong path, IP, etc; you got an authentication step wrong; you forgot a semicolon… Or your backup scheme missed something: system outage, internet outage, power outage… whatever the cased, something was borked and you now have no backup. But you had received no alarms and figured it was working and went on your merry way until you come to want to retrieve some of the data only to discover there was nothing there.
If your backup doesn't work when you need it, you don't have a backup. Check your backups before you need them.
And remind me to practice what I preach! I have a fair bit of data not backed up at all. I don't think much of it will be important (my critical stuff definitely is backed up), but if my laptop hard drive borks it today I don't even know what data I will be missing, which is kinda scary.
Going back to that rule, RAID can certainly be one of your 3 copies, but it doesn't count as a different format nor an off-site copy. RAID's entire purpose is not data security but availability. It's there so you can retain access to your files in the event of a drive failure, not to maintain a backup copy. It does do this, but it is not a true backup as it is a live duplicate.
Yes of course it is. You don't even need to remove the existing ones.
You can setup a new Mirrored Volume in Disk Management on Windows once you plug in the two new ones.