Switching to Raid 1

[CapeKO]

I am presently running my computer with one HD.
I want to add a second HD and switch to Raid 1.
The computer has raid a controller build in, I can set up raid during boot up
So if I add a second hard drive and then configure to raid 1 during boot up will this work or will i have to reinstall everything.
Thank you for any help

[jman98]

It should "just work" and not destroy your data, provided that you pick the drive with data as the drive to mirror from. However, I have to be honest and admit that I have never personally done this type of mirroring on the fly. I've done it either at install time or used software, not hardware, mirroring on an already running server. With software mirroring you can pick which disk gets copied, so you know you're getting the right thing copied to the new disk. Weird unintended things can happen with computers so it may be that the only way to give yourself 100% assurance that won't lose anything is to buy a third disk and make an exact copy of what is currently your only disk and keep it just in case.

[jagabo]

Be aware that mirroring is not a substitute for backups. If Windows goes bonkers and splatters crap all over the drive, or if malware infects the system, both drives will be messed up.

[jman98]

Excellent point jagabo! Thank you for mentioning that. It's unusual, but even in Unix based operating systems I have seen one drive go bonkers and end up ruining the other drive in a mirrored pair. Perhaps that's even more incentive to buy yet a 3rd drive for "just in case" conditions.

[edDV]

The idea of RAID 1 is one drive can fail, leaving an entact copy on the other. This only protects for drive failure and is not a backup.

Any malware, file corruption or accidental erasures will affect both drives leaving no recovery options.

You need a third drive for backup.

[rallynavvie]

RAID 1 is meant to offer protection for hardware failures. There's really not much you can do to protect against software failures except be careful what you're doing.

Most onboard RAID controllers are rubbish. RAID 1 isn't very hardware intensive (because the controller is simply sending identical data to two destination drives simultaneously) so an onboard controller should be OK. However the onboard controllers probably don't support building RAID 1 "on the fly" when you first configure it. You need to check the manuals for that particular controller/board to see if it can do that specifically. Odds are you'll have to start from scratch; that's probably the better way to do that anyway.

[edDV]

One way to do that is to buy two new identical drives and set them up as a new RAID 1 (the C:\ drive). Then copy the material from your existing drive to the RAID. Then your existing drive becomes the backup drive.

[CapeKO]

Thank you for the info, I will make a clone disc before trying anything