Hardware RAID question

[Count_Alucard 0]

My understanding of hardware RAID at this point in time is still thin.(I'm trying to learn, though) For one HDD to mirror another HDD, do both drives have to be new & empty initially? Or can the source HDD have data on it already? I intend shortly to install two WD 100GB drives on a Soyo Fire Dragon mainboard using its onboard RAID. It is possible I may need to use one of the new drives a bit early because of problems on my current HDD. Thanks for your help.

[BladeRunner 0]

I'm sure somebody will set me straight if I'm wrong on this one.

It's my understanding that when setting up hardware RAID you are going to loose whatever data you currently have in place no matter what RAID level you are choosing.

On the two RAID level's I've used at home (First RAID 0 and currently RAID 0+1) this has definately been the case.

 

Now logically speaking there is no reason why you should need to loose all the data on the existing drive, you are simply adding a RAID 1 mirror set, so in theory the new drive could be added, the mirror setup and all data could be mirrored, but in all the manuals for my current Promise controller and the Highpoint I used to own it has always said:

Warning - Setting up RAID will result in all current data being lost, please make sure you backup first.

 

Maybe a more advanced controller could cope with this, something in the £300 area with on-board memory etc, but the lower end controllers and on-board ones I doubt can cope with such a thing.

[Count_Alucard 0]

Thanks. I'll start with a clean install.

[Brian Frank 0]

For RAID 0, I know that's true, but I don't believe that fits the bill for all levels of RAID. Pretty much what BladeRunner said about the mirroring: shouldn't loose the data, but a backup can't hurt ya any.

[euankirkhope 0]

To set up my RAID system, I simply used partiton magic (in dos mode) to copy my win2000 partition onto the RAID drive, then disabled the old drive, so win2k didn't see it, and mess up the drive letters.

 

Worked a treat!