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Hardware RAID 5

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Experimental computer: ASUS M2N-E

Enable RAID in BIOS first,

Set up RAID 5 in MediaShield configuration wizard

Install NVIDIA RAID software and restart the computer

Available space: 298.10 (149.05+149.05) GB

You cannot use the remaining spaces on both Disk 0 and Disk 1.

Copy data to the RAID drive;

Shut down Windows 2008;

Disconnect the disk 3 from the system

Restart the computer.

The RAID is “degraded”.

You can still access RAID 5 volume, though.

Copy data to the RAID 5 volume,

Shutdown computer, re-connect the same disk and re-start the computer;

"Degraded" RAID 5 and "Error" RAID 5 messages display.

Delete the RAID 5 with ERROR status;

The RAID 5 will automatically rebuild.

If a hard disk in RAID fails, replace it with a blank disk (size no less than failed hard disk). The RAID will rebuild automatically.

If you move all three disks to another computer, the RAID is gone.

MS RAID

Create a RAID 5

Unplug the data cable to Disk 1

Copy data to F drive (RAID 5)

It means that we can access the RAID drive. How long? It is a question.

Reconnect the Disk 1 and run RESCAN from Disk Management console

Right click on Disk 1 and re-activate it

The RAID 5 is resynching again.

Unplug Disk 2

Replace it with another hard disk of equal or larger size than the RAID 5 space;

Run RESCAN in Disk Management console

After converting the disk 2 to dynamic, the RAID 5 volume is resynching.

One advantage of software RAID:

You can move the whole RAID set to another computer. The second computer will identify it as Foreign status. After you import the RAID set, you can use it.