Forum Home
Press F1
Thread ID: 140144	2015-08-24 16:33:00	Removing a RAID 1 drive	BrotherDragon (10117)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1407342	2015-08-24 16:33:00	My current computer has 2 HDDs in RAID 1 configuration using Windows 7. I'm going to build a new Skylake computer with an SSD as the primary drive and would like to use one of the drives in my old computer as an archive drive, transfer data from the drive into my new computer and still have a functioning old computer. I need to know what steps I need to take to remove one of the RAID 1 drives from my old computer and still have the computer functioning with a single drive. Thanks.	BrotherDragon (10117)
1407343	2015-08-24 19:34:00	pull it out, see what happens go into the RAID controller settings and remove the drive	nmercer (3899)
1407344	2015-08-24 22:37:00	I'm a bit leery of 'see what happens'. It reminds me of those famous last words 'Hey guys, watch this!'. Without doing anything I've gone into the quite old (American Megatrends 2010) BIOS where there is a menu selection called Storage Configuration from which I can select IDE, RAID or AHCI. I'm assuming I should select IDE. Should I do this before I physically remove the secondary drive or remove the drive first? Can I then just plug the drive into my new computer and access the data on it? I will be using a different drive as the boot drive on the new computer.	BrotherDragon (10117)
1407345	2015-08-24 22:44:00	Most controllers, in a RAID1 config, if you remove one drive, will simply operate off the remaining drive in a degraded state. I can't say I've used the dinky raid setup on a desktop board often enough to know if it will behave like a proper RAID controller, though.	inphinity (7274)
1407346	2015-08-24 23:13:00	maybe if you post the make/model of your board someone can google the RAID settings and look them up for you	nmercer (3899)
1407347	2015-08-24 23:37:00	RAID 1 is a mirror, it's whole point for existing is so one drive can "fail" without losing data. You should be perfectly safe removing 1 drive and seeing what happens, in theory at least. If it doesn't keep working your RAID setup is pointless. Assuming of course you don't actually mean a RAID 0 stripe which a lot of people seem to think is a good Idea for a boot drive for performance reasons. Irrelevant opinion you didn't ask for time: RAID is not useful in a home environment for the vast majority of users, including those that swear by it. Just keep regular backups on an external drive and you are in a much better position without the pitfalls. RAID does not replace a backup and only protects you from drive failure not data corruption or accidental deletion.	dugimodo (138)
1407348	2015-08-25 00:15:00	RAID 1 is a mirror, it's whole point for existing is so one drive can "fail" without losing data. occasionally it all turns to custard when 1 drive fails , seen a couple of times for different reasons . Rare , but happens. Make a image to a USB HD first, just in case. Then break the mirror , then remove 1 drive .	1101 (13337)
1407349	2015-08-25 01:46:00	The motherboard is an ASUS P7P55 LX. After that page my drives are listed under Intel Matrix storage manager(RAID 1). There is a program called Intel Matrix storage console that lists my RAID drives but the program only allows me to create RAID volume and has nothing to discontinue RAID.	BrotherDragon (10117)
1407350	2015-08-25 07:03:00	You can pull one of the drives out and the remaining RAID 1 disk will still keep operating in it's "degraded" state and as long as you leave your mobo's disk controller set to "RAID" you should be able to continue accessing the remaining disk. You're intention is to replace the current disk with an SSD so that will mean you will need to "break" the RAID config rendering the remaining disk useless because you need the controller to be set to RAID in order for the data to be read from the existing disk. Your best option (in my opinion) is; 1) Perform a "file level" full backup of the data on the RAID disk. 2) Disable RAID in the BIOS and switch to AHCI. 3) Install your SSD and your new OS. 4) Format one of the disks from your previous RAID config. 5) Restore the data from your backup to the newly formatted disk. As previously mentioned RAID isn't as "efficient" on a home computer mainly because you generally only have on disk controller on the mobo that can do the RAID i.e. when it's enabled all the SATA ports (for instance) are available to the RAID config. Now you should in theory be able to select which disks can and can't be part of the RAID config. Whether or not the disks NOT part of the RAID will be usable is another story. If you're not intending to use RAID at all going forward, I would honestly just backup the data, wipe the RAID config and change to the AHCI controller mode. Good luck.	chiefnz (545)
1407351	2015-08-26 05:55:00	RAID does not replace a backup and only protects you from drive failure not data corruption or accidental deletion. Hmmm.........I have a Raid 1 setup on my business computer, and at least twice, and possibly three times (usually after working too late at night) I have done something stupid and ended up with a lock-out that required a hard reboot. On each occasion, after reboot RAID has reported corruption on one or more disks, then gone into a lengthy rebuild, during which the drive light stayed on constantly for several hours, but finally leaving me back where I started with all data intact etc and only the last few lines of my work lost, if that. In the early days with this computer there was a flaw in (I think) the RAID software and it was reporting a failed disk at boot time. It happened several times then I finally found the answwer myself on a US Forum and took it back to the builders to update the software. Throughout all of that my data stayed intact. I wouldn't want to be without it, back-ups not withstanding and it helps me sleep at night! Cheers Billy 8-{)	Billy T (70)
1 2