OS X Software RAID (Mirroring), please help.

[kman79]

I have a dual enclosure by OWC that is RAID (Mirrored) by using OS X raid configuration, but I do have a concern in terms of reliability and redundancy. Since this RAID is software controlled, what would happen to the data on it if I was to reformat and reinstall OS X on my MacBook Pro? Would the RAID configuration in my enclosure stay intact? Will I be able to read the information stored in the previous OS X RAID?

I apologize for my ignorance with this issue, any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[VideoFreek]

If I understand you correctly, you are using a 2-disk array configured as RAID 1 (mirrored drives). If this is correct, no worries, since the full data are written to each drive. More info here. Be aware that software RAID takes a performance toll, however. You'd be better off using an enclosure with a built-in hardware RAID controller.

 

[kman79]

I really do want an Enclosure that will do Hardware RAID1, but the OWC Elite enclosure I bought won't do RAID1 via hardware, didn't see that in the fine print.

I appreciate the help and the link. So it seems in the even I do a reformat and clean install of OS X, my RAID1 should still work with the newly installed OS X. Thank you sir.

 

[ChrisA]

I really do want an Enclosure that will do Hardware RAID1, but the OWC Elite enclosure I bought won't do RAID1 via hardware, didn't see that in the fine print.

You can always replace the enclosure. It's the two drives that are the expensive part. With software RAID 1 (mirror) there is a performance hit for writes because the data has to go down the cable twice. But for reads it can actually be faster than a single drive. The software and "ping pong" between the drives and take advantage of some parallelism.