Then, before we remake the array, we take a complete backup of any essential data from the working disk, preferably on an external hard drive. We must replace the HDD that has failed with a new one, as soon as possible. In this case, we need to reset and choose the secondary plex. If we have the Windows installation on RAID 1 and lose the original disk, we will just get a cryptic message when trying to start the plain Windows 7 option. We must make a habit of checking ourselves the Disk Management console every once in a while, to make sure that RAID 1 is working with both disks and full redundancy. This is a huge oversight, especially if we consider that a Linux Software RAID can send us an email as soon as a disk fails. Unfortunately, the system doesn't give us any warning whatsoever that one of the disks has failed. We still have complete access to our data, and nothing is lost provided the other disk still works properly. When one of the hard drives does fail, we get a "Failed Redundancy" message at the Disk Management console. What happens when one disk fails in RAID 1 Now, on each system startup, we will get two boot options, one for each disk.īoth installations are identical, so it doesn't matter if we choose the "secondary plex" one. Mind you that if, for some reason, we don't have a "System Reserved" partition, it's impossible to create a bootable software RAID 1, the option will be grayed out. We just need to mirror both the System Reserved partition. Since we don't need to format both drives to create Software RAID 1, we can also create a RAID 1 with the Windows installation. But we shouldn't do this if we wish to dual-boot with another operating system, because of the dynamic disk restrictions we mentioned earlier. Creating a Software RAID 1 for the Windows installation Disks are known to have failed during the RAID resynching. It is a strenuous procedure for the disks, and we shouldn't make it any harder. It's best to leave the RAID 1 resynching complete before we do any intensive writing or deleting of data. The software RAID 1 is created and starts resynching.Īs you can see, the original data we had on the single disk isn't lost, and we have complete access to it while the RAID is resynching. The system will show us the new disk, and we click on Add Mirror.īoth the disk we already had and the new disk will be converted to dynamic disks. In this case, we right-click the NTFS volume and select "Add Mirror.". Let's say we didn't buy two more disks but had already a disk or partition containing our data, and bought another disk to create a RAID 1. We will find it in the "Computer", as a single disk.Ĭreating a Software RAID 1 copy of an existing data disk or partition a Linux distribution or another version of Windows.īy choosing "Yes", our Software RAID 1 in Windows 7 is ready. The only downside of that is that we can't dual-boot another operating system from a dynamic disk e.g. The system warns us that this operation will convert basic disks to dynamic. Four 1TB disks in RAID 1 give us a 1TB array, with 75% of the total capacity lost.įinally, we assign a drive letter to the new array. In theory, we can have more than two disks in a RAID 1 array, but they will all be copies of one disk, and a terrible waste of space. On the New Mirrored Volume Wizard, we add the 2nd disk. Else, we need to select the GPT partition style.Īfter that, we right-click on one of the two unallocated volumes, and select "New Mirrored Volume.". If the disks are smaller than 2TB each, the MBR partition style is good enough. If both of the disks we will use for the Software RAID 1 are brand new, once we open the Disc Management console, we will get a message to initialize the disks. To create the software RAID, we press the Windows key + R, to open the "Run" dialogue, and type: diskmgmt.mscĬreating a software RAID 1 with brand new disks If we use two 1TB disks for RAID 1, the array will have a 1TB capacity in total. The downside of RAID 1 is that we lose 50% of the total disk capacity. So, when one of them fails, the data is safe on the other. How to create a software RAID 1 in Windows 7Īs we mentioned earlier, on a level 1 RAID two disks have the exact copy of all the data at any single moment. With RAID 0 being useless for data security and RAID 5 being unavailable, creating a software RAID 1 in Windows 7 is the only viable option. Only Windows Server editions - as old as Windows 2000 server - can create a software RAID 5.
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