Is it possible to add second HDD and make it RAID 1/0?

I have an m17x and would like to add a second hard drive and make it RAID 1/0 or whatever mirroring is called for redundancy purposes.

Is it possible to add the second drive and make it a mirror of the first drive without destroying the entire volume and having to re-install the OS?

Thanks!

 

Unfortunately, no - at least not that I'm familiar with (at least not on Windows - there may be some 3rd party software that could assist with this somehow, but I doubt it). You'll have to reinstall.

 

Yeah, fc, I think any shortcut (if one existed) would be sketchy at best, and might leave you with subtle corruptions and problems. You better plan on doing it right, which would mean throwing the RAID switch properly and performing a wipe-and-redo. You have too much money and time in a system like the Alien to do it poorly. It isn't a terrible job.

 

Hmmm...im not sure on this. Maybe you can use software to "clone" your existing hard drive to the new one (Acronis True Image).....its probably more hassle and less efficient than just adding the second drive, setting up the array that you want and then reinstalling the OS....If its Raid 0, you will have no other choice but to reinstall the OS as the data is spread across both drives - you wont be able to "image" the second drive as its "half the data".

If its Raid 1 Mirror, what I would do personally, and like Voice has said, is simply to add the drive, do the array changes and reinstall.

Probably best to do the job right first time than to try and avoid the work (which isnt hard anyhow) in the first instance.

 

Just use windows software raid and mirror the existing drive

 

Personally, i dont see the point in raid 1, bit of a waste of a second hard drive. As long as you have your stuff backed up, you wouldnt have an issue with raid 0 and it will perform better/faster.

 

I concur wholeheartedly, especially in a laptop. Just backup on a regular basis, better to have a copy away from the machine, than inside it. RAID 1 only really protects against a failed hard drive which is much less likely than accidentally deleted files, files corrupted, viruses, etc. Just keep historical backups so you can at least reach back a while in time in case of a virus infection you didn't realize for a week or so. Better yet, if you have an old PC sitting around, buy a couple 2TB HDD's and install Windows Home Server on it and have instant automated backups as far back as you want not to mention network storage accessible through home LAN or over the web, plus remote desktop control of your PC's on the home nework.

 

My wife is working on her thesis. She could not survive the stress of losing the hard drive and having to rebuild a new drive and restore her saved data to it. Those hours are too precious. We still back up the data separately for the reasons you have stated.

Granted there are other solutions for this, but a simple RAID 1 is also an inexpensive and reliable solution too. You do have me thinking about the home server idea!

 

Hey pcgeek, do what we "super geeks" (like me!) do and get yourself (or your wife, or both) an account on Dropbox! That's pretty much the ultimate backup & synchronization solution, and you can sleep at night knowing it's essentially impossible to lose anything important. Then, you can RAID 0 to your heart's content.

But yes, I'm a RAID 1 guy as well. RAID 0 just doesn't impress me that much, especially when it divides your mean-time-between-failures figure by the number of drives you are RAID-ing. My time is just too valuable.

 

I hear that a lot from people "my time and data is too valuable" yet when you recommend to do what makes most sense is get a windows home server, they balk at the idea. Just do it. You can use pretty much any hardware, obviously one with a multitude of SATA ports, but you can always a SATA PCI card too if need be.

Dropbox is also quite nice, and I actually use that as a backup of my most critical data (primarily personal photos and legal documents).

Only instance where RAID 1 is critical is when you have time sensitive data that you absolutely cannot lose on a minute-to-minute basis.

 

I just set it up on my laptop and had to do a clean install. Someone was mentioning about changing the registry to make windows think that it was a raid1 drive. Since my laptop was new, I just went the reinstall way.

BTW, what are the models of the hard drives in your laptop? If anyone of them is seagate, be very very afraid!