Breaking up a Raid

[chrishollo]

Anyone know how to break up a two drive raid? I have two external drives set up as a mirrored raid and I don't know how to split the two drives apart. I am afraid that I will lose the data on the drives. I would like to end up with two separate drives with identical data so that I can take one off site and leave the other online.

Is it as simple as deleting the raid in disk utility (where I created the raid in the first place)?

Thanks for the advice.

CH

 

[GlossyIsBad4U]

I have two external drives set up as a mirrored raid and I don't know how to split the two drives apart. Is it as simple as deleting the raid in disk utility (where I created the raid in the first place)?

Yes.

I am afraid that I will lose the data on the drives. I would like to end up with two separate drives with identical data so that I can take one off site and leave the other online.

Before experimenting, backup the data on mirrored drives (same data on both) to a third drive via the Finder. Check it as well as you can.

Next delete the mirrored RAID set in Disk Utility and copy the data back from the third drive.



Of course before you do that you can try to see if the data is just fine on each drive. See if it's accessable with one drive disconnected etc.

I don't use mirrored drives personally, as it only offers hardware failure protection, software and files do get corrupted, deleted etc. so I use time staggered clones instead.

 

[chrishollo]

Breaking up a Raid

Thanks, that is what I was afraid of. I have a new 5 drive eSata box coming tomorrow so I guess the safe route would be to do as you suggest and copy the data to a new drive before trying to delete the original raid set.

CH