new Raid1 HDD's an existing Vista PC

[Pedro_The_Swift]

I have my OS on a SSD, and a green WD 1TB that I have the rest of my crap on (IMPORTANT stuff like games,, and other stuff like family pics:angel::p)
and then I have two 500GB black caviars that I want to run in raid1 as a backup to the 1TB drive.

For you long termers, yes I have tried this before--:angel:

and this is the crux of the matter--

the last time I tried a RAID I had to do a fresh install of Vista,,

Can I do it and NOT reinstall Vista?

I have found some posts from '08 that said yes,,
but it was a very convoluted (read technical) solution.

[DeanoH]

Hi Pedro, I used to run a raid 1 setup on my old Vista PC with a separate boot drive and apart from the fact that Vista was/is a disaster it worked OK with no major issues.
I can't see why running additional drives, raid or otherwise, should affect the boot drive. Certainly you'll need to load drivers which should have come with your motherboard or better off downloadable from the manafacturers web site. You'll also need to change your BIOS configuration to reflect this and maybe relocate hard drives to free up raid capable ports on the motherboard. This may mean re-specifying the boot drive in BIOS, but no big deal. A BIOS update would probably be a good idea so that you're starting from a solid base.
It's also worth noting that your SSD should be on a port that is configured for ACHI or RAID in BIOS to work properly.
In the end I went for a an external NAS (raid 1) connected to the router which is accessable from across the network which I find to be a better idea.
What motherboard are you using and which SSD have you got ?
The SSD's interest me as I've recently built 2 PC's using OCZ octane SSD's as boot drives. Both SSD's were failures after a couple of months so I'm a bit wary of them.

Deano :)

[Wallaby Ted]

If you want to use Raid 1 (mirroring) with 2 500GB hard drives, you will only end up with 500GB. If you want to use 2 Hard drives to backup 1TB you will need to use Raid 0. Now just to confuse it you can either use Raid 0 as Striping or Concatination (usually if you are formatting you would use striping). The downside of striping is that if you lose 1 disk you lose the data on both, the upside is that it is quicker than 1 drive (I have WD drives in Raid 0 for speed as when I built this pc I didn't want to morgage the house for an SSD).

Now if you are going to build the Raid set and use it as a data drive (i.e. not OS) then you shuold be able to add it without rebuilding your PC. The general steps would be (after a backup):
1. Power off the system
2. Using proper anti-static techniques install the hard drives into the system
3. Power on the system and go into the bios (assuming you are using on board raid) and put those drives into the correct mode, it may be raid, or ahci etc **This step may or may not be needed depending on your motherboard**
4. Next you will need to ho into the raid bios and setup a raid set by adding the 2 disks and pick the type of raid either raid 0 or 1
5. If you can do a quick initialization of the raid set (this will wipe the drives)
6. save your settings and reboot the pc
7. enter bios and make sure your ssd is still the boot device as most raid controllers will change this to the raid set
8. Boot into windows and install the raid drivers for you chipset
9. You can then partition and format as per normal

If you need any more information don't hesitate to ask.


Richard

[jboot51]

+1 for what deano said.
Setting up raid will not affect your SSD.
Just remember that 2x500 Gig drives in raid 1 will only net 500 Gig usable space.

Deano, the octane drives have had issues for quite a while now.
I've had an Agility 3 fail straight out of the box as well.
For a Budget upgrade or new build I've been using the Kingston HyperX 120 Gig drives. Seem solid so far.

Wallaby Ted must use 2 fingers to type, I only use 1, beat me to it.

[Pedro_The_Swift]

The SSD is a corsair Force GT.
yes i know the array will only be 500 gb,,

The main problem is Vista makes you install the raid drivers BEFORE you install Vista,, you cant do it afterwoods.

or can you?,,
thats the real question here,,

I agree with Wallaby Teds sequence but it BSOD's just after the Vista aero screen makes its first appearence

[Wallaby Ted]

As long is it isn't the boot drive you should be able to install it afterwards. I have migrated XP/Vista/7 and server products over to raid as well, it just takes a bit of planning i.e. installing the correct raid drivers first, and usually using a product like ghost,acronis or Macrium with a SBS server.

If you can't boot because of blue screen then you may need to remove the drives and install the driver first. If your motherboard has 2 different controllers then, have the raid set on 1 and your boot drive on the other as you probably wont get away with loading the raid driver if you are using the same controller for your boot disk (this is how I have done this in the past).

Vista makes you install the boot drivers before you install vista so that it can install a fresh vista image on the raid set (usually done via f6 from memory or was it f2) it is a different driver you need to load when you install vista to keep using the raid set, and this is the driver you need if you want to install a raid set into a running system not the boot one.

2 fingers, I only use 1 finger on each hand.

Richard

[DiscoCam]

Probably not the type of answer you're looking for nor the cheapest option but I just bought one of these Synology DS212J (http://www.synology.com/products/product.php?product_name=DS212j) to enable raid 1 back ups.

I'm loving it.

[rar110]

Probably not the type of answer you're looking for nor the cheapest option but I just bought one of these Synology DS212J (http://www.synology.com/products/product.php?product_name=DS212j) to enable raid 1 back ups.

I'm loving it.

I'm still trying to decide which synology nas will suit me long term, ds212j, ds213 or ds213+. Low energy use by ds213+ is attractive.

[mikehzz]

You only have to have the raid drivers installed before hand if it is the system boot drive you want on the raid. If the raid is just for data then no problem. Vista..yuck :D