Hi need some info, looking at setting up raid with 2 hdd, am i right in understanding that you need to use 2 identical hdd? or can you use different? and im guessing that ill need to do a clean install of windows once finished setting up the devices?
cheers
dave
RAID
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Aladinsaneuk
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yep have to be identical hard drives - not just size but make/model etc
and yep, clean install of windoze required
my personal opinion..... for just about anyone it is not worth it - go get some decent archiving software and go that way - raid is a bitch to set up, is a pain to restore and most find that it is hard to recover from
I may be biased though
and yep, clean install of windoze required
my personal opinion..... for just about anyone it is not worth it - go get some decent archiving software and go that way - raid is a bitch to set up, is a pain to restore and most find that it is hard to recover from
I may be biased though
Warning - tech stuff coming up. Stop reading here if you're afraid of computer speak. 
Torn, it depends what level of RAID you are wanting.
RAID 0 has no redundancy built in. Your data is spread evenly across all the disks - lose one disk, you lose everything.
RAID 1 keeps copies of your data on each disk. Lose a disk and your data is still OK.
RAID 5 uses multiple disks to spread your data out, but uses checksums so that it can recreate your data in the event of a disk failure. You can lose one disk and keep running, but if you lose a second disk you're toast.
You can use combinations of RAID 0 and 1 to create large disk volumes. The best configuration is to use RAID 1 to create mirror pairs of disks, then lay down a RAID 0 set across the top. If you're lucky, you can lose half your disks without losing any data. (Yes, I have tested this, and it works great.)
For a home Windows machine, I'd go with a pair of huge drives that are mirrored, preferably using a hardware RAID controller. Software RAID is not that crash hot when it comes to performance.
As Aladinsaneuk said, the drives have to be identical in size. All the way down to the number of heads / cylinders / sectors.
Torn, it depends what level of RAID you are wanting.
RAID 0 has no redundancy built in. Your data is spread evenly across all the disks - lose one disk, you lose everything.
RAID 1 keeps copies of your data on each disk. Lose a disk and your data is still OK.
RAID 5 uses multiple disks to spread your data out, but uses checksums so that it can recreate your data in the event of a disk failure. You can lose one disk and keep running, but if you lose a second disk you're toast.
You can use combinations of RAID 0 and 1 to create large disk volumes. The best configuration is to use RAID 1 to create mirror pairs of disks, then lay down a RAID 0 set across the top. If you're lucky, you can lose half your disks without losing any data. (Yes, I have tested this, and it works great.)
For a home Windows machine, I'd go with a pair of huge drives that are mirrored, preferably using a hardware RAID controller. Software RAID is not that crash hot when it comes to performance.
As Aladinsaneuk said, the drives have to be identical in size. All the way down to the number of heads / cylinders / sectors.
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Tweaker
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Why not go down the road of a NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive or USB drive and some free archive software? You don't need to re-install windows, you can archive multiple drives onto one and they're easy to set up. I've been using a NAS for around 6 months and it simply works! Do you really nead a mirror image of everything on your drive? Most domestic installs don't, you generally just want to archive documents, pictures etc.
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
The ride is the reason ........ the destination is just the excuse.
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Aladinsaneuk
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even easier solution to archiving documents and phots etc, and this is free
Get a gmail account - currently you can have up to 2.8 gb of archived emails
So, email your documents to your gmail account, and then set them up there with filters so they are organised
(Sometimes I surprise myself with just how much of a red sea pedestrian I can be....)
For archiving windows have a look at http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsX ... ootcd.html
Get a gmail account - currently you can have up to 2.8 gb of archived emails
So, email your documents to your gmail account, and then set them up there with filters so they are organised
(Sometimes I surprise myself with just how much of a red sea pedestrian I can be....)
For archiving windows have a look at http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsX ... ootcd.html