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Question about how RAID 1 functions

BloodTotal

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So far from my reading, I understand raid 1 to be a motherboard function.

I would go into my motherboard bios and setup two physical harddrives to function together in RAID 1.

Everything on the operating system level would recognize it as one harddrive. So if I'm installing windows, I would just choose the drive that I know is my RAID 1 drive.

Is this thinking correct?

Also, I will be quadroople booting windows, ubuntu, os x, and another windows. Will that be a problem?
 
newtekie1

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Pretty much correct.

However, usually you set the SATA controller to RAID mode. Then when the computer boots there will be a second screen that tells you to press a key combination to go into the RAID configuration section(Ctrl+I with Intel controllers). Once in that screen you can configure your RAID array and give it a name.

Then, yes, the OS will recognize the RAID array as one "drive"(however you might have to load a driver before the OS will recognize the array).

Quadruple booting shouldn't be an issue as long as you setup the partitions on the drive, which I assume you already know how to do if you are planning to quadruple boot.
 
W1zzard

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personally i dont trust hardware raid 1. i prefer to use the operating system's software raid 1 solution, which means if a drive fails i could just take the other drive to any other random pc and it will be detected and i can get my data. migrating to a different motherboard/controller will also be a non issue
 
FordGT90Concept

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Pretty sure hardware RAID1, you can pull any of the drives out of the array and use them just like you would a single drive. As such, RAID1 drives will work under virtually any hardware while the more complex RAIDs won't (like 5). If you're willing to spend the money to buy three+ hard drives for RAID5, you should really consider getting a dedicate card for it too that has more features (like hot spare and buzzer that sounds on drive failure).
 
newtekie1

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Yep, I've pulled drives out of RAID1 arrays and plugged them in as single drives to other PCs and they work just fine and I could read/write all the data.
 
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