can I raid my hard drives?

[bonk]

I do a lot of digital photography, and over the course of the last year, I've shot several big jobs and now have a (very pretty) stack of 8 lacie/porsche 250gb drives on my desk with all the raw files. I am wondering if it is possible to raid them, and what the pros and cons are.

some questions:

if I raid them, can I remove and/or add drives easily without having to redo any of the setup?

do I need to reformat anything or can the data remain in place?

the drives are all currently identical, but in the future, I may use different brands or capacities - will this be a problem?

what do the different 'levels' of raid mean?


thanks for any info!

 

[varmit]

Raid

Explanation of all the raids.
http://www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html

Definition.
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid5_gci214332,00.html

The drives have to be the same size if you are going to do something other than Raid 0. I Think formatting will be involved in all of them, but maybe Raid 0, which is just joining of all the drives to make one big one wont need formatting.

If someone who has done RAID could step in and answer if adding drives is possible, which I believe is, because I havn't done RAID myself.

 

[pncc]

some questions:

if I raid them, can I remove and/or add drives easily without having to redo any of the setup?

NO. Especially with Apple RAID. Using SoftRAID, you COULD remove a mirrored volume and have the software restore it, but I wouldn't do this willy nilly.

do I need to reformat anything or can the data remain in place?
YES. You have to reformat for RAID.

the drives are all currently identical, but in the future, I may use different brands or capacities - will this be a problem?

You COULD do this, but I wouldn't recommend it. Same size, brand and interface of drive is best to match performance characteristics.

what do the different 'levels' of raid mean?

See previous posters reference.

thanks for any info![/QUOTE]

 

[maxvamp]

Big Question!!!!

I am running two Macs, each with a different type of RAID ( 0 , 5 ).

While I know what you are trying to achieve, there will be too much typing involved to adaquatly answer on a message board. If you want to email me at maxvamp@comcast.net, I can do my best to help you out.

It Can be done!!


Thanx,

Max.