Mirrored Raid Backup

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I bought a Rosewill RSV-S4-X RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, 5+spare, spanning and JBOD (using bundled utilities), with the thought of setting up mirrored raids for two computers. I have two Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD20EFRX 2TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s drives and saw ST2000DX001 2TB MLC/8GB 7200 RPM 64MB on sale for a good price this morning. I wanted to set up each of the mirrors with two different drives. Would it work to pair each of the WD drives I have with one of the referenced Seagate drives? Also, after reading some reviews I came across this morning while researching, I wonder if I might not be better off setting up my Raid array in extra bays in my HAF 932 tower and just using the Rosewill as a media server?
 
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dwatterworth
You've got it for sure on putting getting all of your drives in the HAF 932 with active cooling on all drives.

There are two ways to create your array: hardware and software raid. To get the most reliable hardware level raid array, you won't be able to set the raid array up without erasing the drives. The drives need to sync all of the data cells. You can however use a drive with existing data on it in a software raid array (setup within windows computer management/disk management) which will 'build' the array, mirroring the data to the secondary disk in the array.

Before creating any raid array, I highly recommend backing up your data to a separate device that isn't part of the array and physically disconnecting it from the system...
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dwatterworth

dwatterworth

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Let me try to understand what you are saying, are you trying to make 2 raid 0 arrays, each with (1) WD drive and (1) Seagate drive? If so, most definitely absolutely do not do this. If it works at all, the array could/would be highly unstable due to both slightly different capacities of the drives but more importantly, different controllers. Raid 0 arrays should be built with the same drives to ensure maximum reliability and performance.

I can't comment on the reliability or functions of the Rosewill expansion box but your question of setting up the array in your main? desktop case depends on how you have your machine set up along with the controllers/available options on your motherboard. If you have direct cooling available for the hard drives in front/fascia mounted fans along with dust filters for those fans, that certainly would give you lower temperatures/increased drive longevity along with probably better performance of the arrays with your onboard controllers.

Unless I am missing some information on that particular enclosure, it looks like you would need to route access to it for the second machine you mentioned through the host computer anyway, it doesn't really look like the enclosure can support two simultaneous independent connections, another case for integrating the drives into your primary machine.

I guess the only use for the enclosure would be if you have no additional connections or drive mounts in your computer.
 
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Dwatterworth:

Thank you for your responses. I am sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. My last two 32 bit XP Pro machines have died in the past several days and I've been focused on repairing or replacing them (and wanting to do a dual boot on a new build, with XP Pro32 bit and hackintosh, in the replacement machine.

If I understand correctly, I will be better off creating the raid array in the the HAF 932 (which I basically use as a server - all of my data is now on that machine - in which I have direct hard drive cooling, front mounted fans - no dust filters, but I vacuum dust out frequently) and perhaps using using the Rosewill enclosure as a media server or something.

This will be my first RAID, so I'm more than a newbie at this. How do I establish a RAID on a drive I've already got GBs of data on?

Again, thank you for your responses.
 
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dwatterworth

dwatterworth

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You've got it for sure on putting getting all of your drives in the HAF 932 with active cooling on all drives.

There are two ways to create your array: hardware and software raid. To get the most reliable hardware level raid array, you won't be able to set the raid array up without erasing the drives. The drives need to sync all of the data cells. You can however use a drive with existing data on it in a software raid array (setup within windows computer management/disk management) which will 'build' the array, mirroring the data to the secondary disk in the array.

Before creating any raid array, I highly recommend backing up your data to a separate device that isn't part of the array and physically disconnecting it from the system your are modifying, just to avoid any possibility of losing any data whatsoever.
 
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If I want to create a hardware raid, can I just copy the info on the WD drives to be the Raid array to another suitably sized drive, erase the WD drive, set up the array using 2 blank WD drives, and then copy the data back to the original WD drive once the array is set up? As a bonus, that will give me some use for that Seagate drive. Another question: I read somewhere that you don't want identical drives (manufacturer, date of manufacture, etc., in a RAID array because then you risk all of them going bad at the same time. Is there any truth to that?
 
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dwatterworth

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Yes you can definitely backup all your data to an external drive or another internal hard drive that you don't intend to use in the array.
I've usually believed and had good luck with the opposite of what you heard about using different drives and types in an array. I typically aim to have exactly the same drive with the same specifications in the array. This ensures that they behave similarly with write speeds, cache size, overall disk size etc etc. The closer together they are, the better the array with perform.

The idea of them going bad at exactly the same time doesn't make much sense. Unless it is a drive that is prone to failure under an exact usage, there isn't much way to predict a drive failure unless it starts getting bad sectors etc.
 
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Thank you again for your good counsel. I will use the two identical WD drives in the array. Sorry it took me so long to answer. I was busy backing up 1.5 TB of data from the WD drive I've been using and I'm down to one computer at the moment. I don't really like to be running anything else on a computer I'm backing up from and it took forever to copy the 1.5 TB - I should have broken the back up into parts and just done 4 or 5 hours worth at a time (overnight), but figured that would still leave me without a computer because I can't really use any of the files on the drive I'm in the process of backing up without ending up with an out of date back up. Anyway, I'm backed up and I got a lot more research done on my dual boot new build using my tablet. By the time the backup was done, I was so immersed in the new build that I forgot to get back to you. I will try to set up the RAID using all of the info in the link you provided to me (http://www.pcworld.com/article/132877/RAID.html) in the next couple of days while I'm waiting on parts for the new build.

Again, thank you so much for your patience with all of my newbie questions.
 
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