Software RAID1 using Disk Utility

[Spyhop]

I have two identical USB HDDs, one full of data and the other empty. If I use Disk Utility to create a software RAID1, will the data on the first drive be nuked during the initialisation of the RAID set?

I can't find this mentioned in the Disk Utility documentation and don't want to experiment and risk losing data

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Can you copy the contents on to your Mac and try it?

I don't think it should nuke the data, after all, RAID1 is only going to be copying it over.

Disk Utility will/should warn you if it's going to erase the disk. You'll have plenty of time to abort

http://iihnt.wordpress.com/2006/06/19/raid-concepts-in-simple/

 

[Spyhop]

It did have to clear both disks, although of course you're right about it asking for confirmation. It's hard to take risks (however small) when the bad outcome would be disaster!

I didn't have enough free space to temporarily hold all the data, but ended up spreading it over a bunch of computers