Question about RAID

[brisk]

Hey,
This will be my first time using RAID 1.
But my question is...if a motherboard fails are the data on both hard drives lost?
Or can I access them if I hook one of them up to a different computer.

I know RAID 1 is mirrored so if one drive fails, I have the other until I put a new one in...right?
But how will I know that one failed?
This is going to be setup via the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Drudenhaus]

Hey,
This will be my first time using RAID 1.
But my question is...if a motherboard fails are the data on both hard drives lost?
Or can I access them if I hook one of them up to a different computer.

You would need to connect the drives to a motherboard that uses the same controller. Sometimes, with fakeraid, you would need to be using the same firmware (typically part of the BIOS package) as well.

I know RAID 1 is mirrored so if one drive fails, I have the other until I put a new one in...right?
But how will I know that one failed?

Yes, you'll be running a single drive setup in the event of a drive failure in a mirror. You can setup notifications, check array health status, etc from the Intel management software in Windows. If you're using linux with dmraid, good luck.

 

[brisk]

Thanks for the reply.
So basically, if I set this up via the Intel RAID mgmt software, I would need to reconnect it to a motherboard with the Intel software on it? (Which I think all new ones have right?)

Wouldn't I have to setup RAID again on the new motherboard causing the data to be deleted?

Thanks again.

 

[Drudenhaus]

Thanks for the reply.
So basically, if I set this up via the Intel RAID mgmt software, I would need to reconnect it to a motherboard with the Intel software on it? (Which I think all new ones have right?)

Wouldn't I have to setup RAID again on the new motherboard causing the data to be deleted?

Thanks again.

Yes, you'd have connect to another board that uses the Intel RAID. You'd have to match the controller, ICH7, ICH8, etc.

You shouldn't have to recreate the array if the controller is identical. The controller will write array metadata to the drives which the controller will read. This way the controller can identify the array upon rebooting (otherwise you'd have to recreate every reboot).

 

[brisk]

Thanks for the reply again.
The matching the controller part...is that a hardware thing or a setting in the BIOS.

Thanks again.

EDIT: Just checked. The gigabyte motherboard has a ICH10R south bridge.
So all i would need to get is something with the ICH10R and setup the BIOS to run in RAID instead of AHCI?

 

[Drudenhaus]

Thanks for the reply again.
The matching the controller part...is that a hardware thing or a setting in the BIOS.

Thanks again.

EDIT: Just checked. The gigabyte motherboard has a ICH10R south bridge.
So all i would need to get is something with the ICH10R and setup the BIOS to run in RAID instead of AHCI?

Correct. That assumes that you don't have firmware/RAID ROM version issues. For example: I messed around with a 2x250GB RAID0 on my old NForce 4 board. I had upgraded the BIOS, which upgraded the ROM for the RAID controller. When I tried to boot into Windows, I got a blue screen. A quick google on my linux box turned up that the ROM version had a mismatch bug with the driver. I had to revert back to the old BIOS until a new one was released that fixed it. That would have been pretty catastrophic if I didn't have a second PC...

 

[brisk]

Ah i see.
Got it.
So all i need to take note of is the BIOS version and ROM version for the RAID drivers and keep them in handy.

Thanks.

On the side note, what are the chances of a motherboard failing....

 

[Drudenhaus]

Ah i see.
Got it.
So all i need to take note of is the BIOS version and ROM version for the RAID drivers and keep them in handy.

Thanks.

On the side note, what are the chances of a motherboard failing....

Not all that likely with normal usage.