indyjones

Hi all,

I am currently running windows home server, however do to the data corruption bug I am thinking on changing my setup, Anandtech has a very good article on this problem WHS: A Series of Unfortunate Events, and the problem is unique to people running two or more drives as its related to the built in drive extender technology. Unfortunately the reason I built this server was for data security and I am not comfortable with the “possibility” of my data becoming corrupt. In the server I have two 500gb disks but luckily I am not using anything like the maximum capacity of them, due to this I am now looking into ditching to inbuilt drive extender technology to use instead RAID 1.

I have never used Raid 1 before, and I was hoping for some help from you all
My motherboard is a gigabyte board based on the Q965 Intel chipset, so I am planning on using its inbuilt raid software/hardware. Now can I format one of my two disk and leave the other full of data so that when I create the raid array it copies all the data from the primary to the secondary disk? Or will I lose all the data on both disks when I create the raid array?

Any help will be much appreciated

Thank you

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Dark Atheist

short answer no - making the raid will destroy data on both disks, you will need to copy everything off the drives then make the raid, and then format the raid drive

fitz

actually it should depend on the smart the array is. Any array controller worth it's weight should be able to build a mirror off an existing drive and preserve the data..

But a lot of the onboard RAID controllers aren't very high-end and thus you may not be able to. Not sure on the specifics of your on-board so I can't comment for sure.

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Dark Atheist

on board raid will not do what he requires, well all the on-board raid controllers i have used are very basic, norm its just a case of make the raid, build it, and destroy it, and that's about it

if you give us the board model number we can have a look

fitz

yeah.. but there really should be NO reason you can't build a mirror.. heck, even the built in windows software RAID can build a mirror/RAID1 without destroying data..

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Dark Atheist

i shall rephrase - every time i have used on board raid there was a big ass message pop up on screen warning that all data on all drives will be wiped, no matter what raid set i was making

fitz

yeah.. i know what you meant carpo.. just had to rant a bit at how stupid most onboard RAID controllers are

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Dark Atheist

as long as we are transparent about the situation

indyjones

Thansk for your help

My board is a Gigabyte GA-965QM-DS2 which I got as it has 6 built in serial ata ports. It is ment to be a good board though.

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Heeter

I have a gigabyte board with RAID controller.

You will have to start with two fresh drives, if you to use that controller. That controller is okay for a mirrored setup.


Heeter

indyjones

Hmm was that an intel chipset as well? As I was under the understanding that it was an intel feature rather than a motherboard manufacturer one. What about doing it once windows is installed though the intel matrix software?

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Dark Atheist

yes i have just seen that in the manual - it will tell you when you make the raid that it will wipe all discs, and you will have to make the raid from the boards raid setup

indyjones

That is just plain rubbish I can obviously understand it if it was raid 0 but raid 1? why does it need to wipe both drives sure it just duplicates the first (with a bit of cleaver wizardry)

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Dark Atheist

grab the manual from the gigabyte site and have a read if you think i am talking rubbish

Heeter

Carpo, I think that is saying this "rubbish" word at the situation, not at you directly.


Heeter

indyjones

Exactly you hit the nail on the head.

I was talking about the situation.

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