Hi guys, I recently had trouble with a RAID array I had. You guys all gave great advice, but the end result was I lost all my data
Since I was since able to reformat the drives and continue on, I figure the problem was not with the drives themselves but with the motherboard's onboard RAID controller. I could not enter it. None of the F-Keys worked like usual to enter the RAID controller, so I ended up having to purchase a PCI add-in RAID controller card.
Recently my friend stumbled into a similar problem with his hard drives where he now cannot RAID his drives because the motherboard's controller is not accessible. He, unfortunately has a SLI system running on a Micro-ATX form factor motherboard ahd has no room for a RAID controller PCI card.
I also learned through my ordeal that there seems to be no industry standardization in RAID controllers, meaning you CANNOT simply unplug two striped drives from one motherboard and plug them into another motherboard without losing all your data when you setup the array.
Furthermore, you apparantly cannot swap one RAIDed array for another RAIDed array without having to setup the array again, and lose all data on the new drives, and lose the ability to replace the old drives.
So my question is what, if any, are the benefits of using a RAID array if you value your data? I realize that RAID-1 (mirroring) is supposed to keep your data safe, but if you can't swap one mirrored array with another, than how are you supposed to keep separated backups, etc? Just because you mirror your data on two physical drives doesn't mean that the RAID controller itself can't screw up BOTH drives at once by messing up the master boot record.