Can you run 2 hard drives that are different is size ?

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16-02-2010, 09:49 AM
jamieuk23

Can you run 2 hard drives that are different is size ?

Hi I have a 1tb hard in my pc, but as I have a lot of important data am looking to set up a second drive in raid. To do this does the second drive have to be the same make or same size ?

All so do you set raid up via the bios ?
16-02-2010, 10:01 AM
arthurleung

Re: Can you run 2 hard drives that are different is size ?

I think you'll be better to just copy the data to another drive as a backup.

To build a RAID you'll need 2 clean drives. And RAID doesn't stop you from deleting your important data by mistake, or file corrupted by virus.
It doesn't need to be of the same make or size. Although the array will be the size of the smaller drive.
16-02-2010, 06:28 PM
s3ds

Re: Can you run 2 hard drives that are different is size ?

If the OS is on the drive as well you may also run into problems with swapping to raid.
You may get away with out two clean drives but to be safe i would always backup on a different drive.
I recently swapped the mobo in a nvidia raid 1 PC to a AMD raid 1 although it eventualy worked I had to do a repair install of windows and a few chkdisks and you need to take care on the options in the raid bios.
16-02-2010, 07:42 PM
Fraz

Re: Can you run 2 hard drives that are different is size ?

RAID is not a backup solution!
16-02-2010, 08:23 PM
CWH

Re: Can you run 2 hard drives that are different is size ?

As Fraz says, Raid like this, is not a backup solution, but just a means of continuing working when one drive fails.
If you want security, then having your data copied over to your second drive is a far better bet and there are numerous methods of doing this from RoboCopy through free applications to paid-for full fat bells and whistles.
Also, trying to set upa Raid system using an existing system/data drive if likely to be problamatic to say the least!

Colin
01-03-2010, 09:53 PM
Tim Rogers

Re: Can you run 2 hard drives that are different is size ?

To use RAID, you do have to have two hard drives of the same nice, I don't believe that the make necessarily needs to be the same though.

Tim
01-03-2010, 10:31 PM
Funkstar

Re: Can you run 2 hard drives that are different is size ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim Rogers

To use RAID, you do have to have two hard drives of the same nice, I don't believe that the make necessarily needs to be the same though.

Tim

No, as arthurleung said, using different sized drives means the array will be based on the smaller of the drives. You end up with the remainder on the larger disk being wasted.