Hoe do I use 1terrabyte (2x500GB) external hard drive in RAID 1 mode?

I just purchased an Iomega 1tb external desktop hard drive wch contains 2 500GB hard drives. I would like to duplicate the contents on the first hard drive onto the second one in case of hard drive failure, how do i go about doing this, seeing that I can only see one 1terrabyte hard drive in 'My Computer'. I read that I have to set it up in RAID 1 mode. Is this possible and if not, is it possible to merely split it up in 'My Computer' into 2 seperate 500GB hard drives instead of 1 1000GB hard drive?

Thanks!

 

What model is it, and could you give a link to the source you already have?

 

sorry, forgot to mention the model. It's the Iomega 1.0 TB USB 2.0 Desktop Hard Drive.

here's the link to the product page:

http://www.iomega-europe.com/item?SID=151990ab9de70916e9452867cf24e801b42:4735&sku=131133821

 

The RAID 1 source was merely a bit of research i did to see what options are available, don't know if my hard drive is capable of RAID 1

 

Do you have a link to the thing where you

?

The specs page says that is default configured as JBOD, which isn't technically RAID at all, so unless there is some interface that you can access, you only have a single volume. As to partitioning it, I don't think you would have any guarantee that, when partitioned, the logical drive would be splot acorss the physical drives. Without more info, it is hard to tell you any good news.

 

Yeah, unfortunately, it looks like you may be SOL. Sorry.
I wouldn't call that a definitive answer though.

 

oh no, that's terrible news. I specifically bought it because of the dual hard drive layout in case one of them fails. thanks for the help none the less...

 

btw, you don't know where i can find more info on something that might work?

 

You'd probably have to dig through manuals and online documentation, and/or get ahold of their tech support people.

 

Since true Hardware RAID is MoBo and chipset enabled I see little hope. I see little hope of anything as sounds like the interface is designed to make them operate as one. Now if you had two externals I would suspect maybe a software automatic update option. Sorry, someone will be able to answer for certain. If no one else does I am like 100% certain K-T will post when he sees so hang tight info is on the way!

 

^^ As powerpack said, any hard drive is capable of participating in a RAID. What you need is a motherboard with a RAID controller and compatible chipset. Most laptops do not have this unless they are designed to house two drives.

 

i don't think u can. you'd have to have two external drives for raid to work as the one enclosure u use reads the two drives as 1. also the only possible thing you could do would be software raid but this in its self wont work because the two external drives will show up as removable. to make software raid work you'd have to use a program called hitachi microdrive filter or something, which would make the external hds appear as fixed.
to sum this up:
1) you need 2 external enclosures
2) hardware raid is impossible only software raid
3) you need to use the microdrive filter to change the hd's mode

hope this helped lol

just found this http://www.escstores.biz/scsae612s1.html which wud probably work if and only if you have an expresscard slot and two esata enclosures

 

The question becomes, do you really need RAID1 backup on your external drive? It might just be easier and work better to get 2 seperate external drives and mirror them every night or once a week or something.

Or maybe you could get fancy and build something yourself, but you'd need more help than I can give you for that.

 

Yeah it would probably be easier to get two firewire enclosures and dixie-chain them and mirror them on an automatic schedule

 

thanks for all the help everyone! looks like the RAId option is out of the window, don't want to open up the enclosure and void my warranty. i think i'll try and find a way of partitioning it into 2, just want to check if it'll split it into exactly 2 physical drives or if the 2x500gb partitions be spread over both the hard drives. posted this question on the official iomega forums and sent iomega an email directly, will let you know what they're response is.