RAID 1 questions

[jon_k]

So I bought all my Windows Home Server hardware, and I have two 750GB drives that I'd like to setup in a RAID 1 array. As this is my first RAID setup, I have a few questions about it before I do.


As I understand it, in RAID 5 array, the data is split to the hard drives in a proprietary manner. In other words, if the motherboard fails, you couldn't simply pull the drives out of the case and stick them in another computer. You'd have to get the same kind of RAID card to recognize the data off the drives.

Now my question is, is is the same in RAID 1 array? Since it is just mirroring the drive I'd assume that each drive would be a standard NTFS volume that I could just stick into any computer and be compatible, but I wanted to ask on here before I started playing around with it.

 

[unhappy_mage]

If you're using WHS and you want to be able to read the drives when you pull them, don't set up RAID, just turn on duplication for everything. RAID cards make no guarantees about what order they store things on disk, or where they put their header, so sometimes RAID 1 disks are readable apart from the controller and sometimes not.

 

[strikerP4]

So I bought all my Windows Home Server hardware, and I have two 750GB drives that I'd like to setup in a RAID 1 array. As this is my first RAID setup, I have a few questions about it before I do.


As I understand it, in RAID 5 array, the data is split to the hard drives in a proprietary manner. In other words, if the motherboard fails, you couldn't simply pull the drives out of the case and stick them in another computer. You'd have to get the same kind of RAID card to recognize the data off the drives.

Now my question is, is is the same in RAID 1 array? Since it is just mirroring the drive I'd assume that each drive would be a standard NTFS volume that I could just stick into any computer and be compatible, but I wanted to ask on here before I started playing around with it.

Its hit or miss with putting RAID drives in another machine and having it recognize the RAID. In my experience though it normally works. RAID5 requires 3 drives. RAID5 stripes the data accros all the drives except for one that is the parirty drive. As long as you don't lose more than one drive in a RAID5 array it can be rebuilt with no data loss. A RAID1 drive can't just be put into another machine as a singe drive and all the files be visible. You would need to replace the failed drive and let the controller rebuild your array to gain access to the data again.