How To Setup a RAID 1 Two Hard Drives

[DsoS]

RAID 1 Guide RAID 1 Guide

I did the double RAID 1 here for.an Easter Egg and not a double typo

Table of Contents:

Terms Used

Q&A

Software

Getting Ready for RAID 1

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This is a good reason to do a RAID 1 setup (or any other type of backup). Don't worry, that drive quit working back in 2000 or so, it's a 4GB drive from my very first computer build in 1998 or 1999, iirc.

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Terms Used:

I will use a few terms/words that might not make since, so I will list them here.

• Main Drive
  
  • The First drive in the RAID 1 array. This is NOT your C: drive with your OS installed

  [*]Second Drive

  • The Second drive in the RAID 1 array. This drive is hidden in My Computer.
  
  

Q&A:

Q: What is RAID 1?

A: It allows Disk Mirroring, which in turn provides fault tolerance. The data is written twice, once to each of two hard drives. It always writes twice mirroring the data to the second hard drive also means a prompt duplication of bad data, virus, malware, etc. in two locations instead of one. If your concerned about Viruses, malware, etc, follow HeyYou's PC Maintenance Guide. I myself have used (dating back to around 2000) and still use the programs that he lists, in a simple and easy guide.

Q: What windows does RAID 1 support?

A: RAID 1 is supported in Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista and Seven (and most likely Eight)

Q: How exactly does RAID 1 work?

A: Whenever you copy/delete a file on the "Main Drive" it is automatically copied on the "Second Drive". Here is a picture of how it works.

This image is from WikiPedia and modified for the best view on TESA

Q: How many Hard Drives do I need?

A: Raid 1 requires a mininum of 2 drives. In this guide I used 2 drives. Also, you will want the drives to be 100% identical, the same manufacture, space and model.

I will add more Q&A when I can think of them, or get Questions from users!

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Software

I used Sync Back Pro when I was setting up my Media server since I already had 2-3TB of data already. I won't go into detail with this program, but if you try it and need help after reading their help, just PM me and I will help you to the best of my ability.

I listed this software in case you have data already on a drive and need/want to keep the data. It has A LOT of "scary" options and function, but fairly easy to use. Another reason why I suggest using a backup utility such as Sync Back Pro is that it mirrors the data exactly and you don't have to worry about anything not being copied over. If you want the Thumb.db files to be copied, you will have to remove it from the programs "Exceptions" list.

This may not be the easiest or best out there, but I found it when I needed it for my Media Server, and it worked out well. You can download a 30 day Trial for free, after 30 days you will have to uninstall or buy it, but I don't think it will take that long to do what you need to. I used the software on 3 Hard Drives and almost 3TB of data flawlessly.

Getting Ready for RAID 1

WARNING: if you have any data on your main drive YOU WILL LOSE ALL THE DATA during this process, so make sure to back it up to another drive or External Hard Drive if possible.

The first thing you should know is what 2 drives you want to RAID. In my media server setup, I have my drives in the case in-line with each other and also labeled (not shown in the picture).

In this How To, we will use Software RAID, Using windows 7 to create the RAID Array. Going this route will be simple and easy. Also, if you have to get a new motherboard or decided to upgrade your hardware, you can move the drives over to the new computer with ease. (This will not be explained here since I have not done it.)

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Past this point I will not have much typed up in the guide, since the images below are self-explanatory and already has been captioned.

Click the Start button and type in "Create and" give it a second to find the Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions.

Disk 1 and Disk 2 are the two drives that we will be using for this Guide. If the drives are brand new and have not been used, you will get another box saying something like, "These drives are not usable at this time, choose MBR or GUID.... Choose GUID for hard drives larger than 2TB. For smaller drives such as 1TB or less, I'm not sure and I don't remember how the box is done.

Right click on "Disk 1" and click "New Mirrored Volume"

Click Next to continue

The window that pops up after clicking New Mirrored Volume.

Select the correct drive that you want to use for your RAID array. This will be the back up drive. Click Next when your ready.

Select the Drive Letter or Leave it as the default letter (Default letter is the next usable letter So I would remove all external drives/usb drives/or anything else that adds a Letter in My Computer. Click Next when your ready.

Leave all the options as they are shown here. The only thing I would change is the "Volume Label" text box that shows "New Volume" to something more useful, in my case I did Anime Array [Number]. The Volume Label name is what you would see in My computer. Click Next when your ready.

Click Finish.

This omininous window is scary (even for me) but for what we are doing its 100% safe. Just click Yes to continue

A few things here.

• The drives are being formatted Red Boxes
• Red Arrow - This lets you know that the Drive(s) are in a Mirrored array.
• The Blue Box is the Fault Tolerence, this shows if the drives are able to be restored if a single drive has a failure (crashes).
• Pink Box - Overhead is the total additional disk space required because of the fault tolerant feature used (if applicable). In my case, I have a 50% overhead. I have two 2-TB hard drives, 1.81GB formatted capacity each for a total of 3.62TB usable space, however with the overhead I only have 1.81TB usable space.
• Green Box, you may or may not see this, in my case my first drive had 127MB of extra space (for some odd reason) and since Raid 1 will use the SMALLEST hard drive for the total amount of usable space, you will want to use TWO IDENTICAL hard drives, same manfacture, model and size.

The RAID 1 array has been setup, formatted and shows up properly.

The drive is now showing in My Computer and you can start filling it up. If you had data on the drive and backed it up with Sync Back Pro or a similar program you can start moving it back to the drives.

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If you are not sure about anything and need help just post here or send me a PM and I will help to the best of my ability

Also, if you notice anything that I missed or gave bad information on, please let me know and I will change/remove/edit ASAP.

Edited May 24, 2012 by DsoS

[camaro_69_327]

Good Guide very useful. Thanks for doing this.

So if a drive fails, with this you can just replace and rebuild the array an not have lost any data?

[DsoS]

Good Guide very useful. Thanks for doing this.

So if a drive fails, with this you can just replace and rebuild the array an not have lost any data?

Yes that is correct.

If one of the hard drives in the mirror volume fails, the remaining hard drive can be placed in service as a single drive with no loss of information and the drive that failed can be replaced.

I'll do some research on how to properly rebuild the array if one drive fails.

[donnato]

....AWSOME add Ds....this is great info. thank you so much for taking the trouble to post this..

[DsoS]

You asked for it Don and I said that I would

It did take 10 or 11 hours though (with a 1 hour down time due to upset stomach).

[donnato]

Well worth it Ds since there`s so little ...step by step...stuff out there...this enriches the "Teaching" aspect that this site is devoted to. We game, yeah, but what do we game on..? Our machines need to be up for all future advances and hardware has to be capable of handling it all...That said...most of us won`t probably need their own server but...if someone does..here ya go...right?