Duplexing Question

Nix

Nix

Soldato
Joined
26 Dec 2005
Posts
19,841
Guys,

I'm looking to buy another 3TB HDD to mirror an identical drive in my system.

The questions I have are these:

1. The current HDD already holds data. Would hardware or software mirroring erase this data? Am I able to set up a new mirror without any issues?

2. Hardware side: My mobo is a Gigabyte Z77-D3H, meaning I have 4 x SATA-II and 2 x SATA-III controllers.

My current storage is:

1 x SSD 6/gbs (boot) connected to SATA-III
1 x 3TB HDD 6/gbs connected to SATA-III

1 x Optical connected to SATA-II
1 x 500Gb HDD connected to SATA-II

I read somewhere that to implement the mirroring at a hardware level, I would need to have the discs on the same controllers, e.g. both on SATA-III or II, not III and II.

The problem I have is I'm unsure of how feasible this is as I wish to keep my SSD boot on SATA-III, meaning everything else would be on II.

Does anyone know if there would be a hardware conflict if I were to for example have the SSD and optical on both the SATA-III ports and the two 3TB HDDs I wish to mirror, and the 500Gb HDD (which wouldn't be part of the chain) all on the SATA-II? Would I be able to mirror with a non-chained device on the same port level?

Indeed, is there actually any substantial difference in terms of the boot speed if I were to move my SSD over to the SATA-II?

TIA.
 
Last edited:
What's wrong with Window's software RAID?

Will I be able to set up a simple software RAID 1 with Windows 7 for the two 3TB volumes whilst plugged in to a SATA-II port along with another volume on the SATA-II which I don't wish to be part of the chain?

Will creating a new mirror cause me to lose my current data?
 
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