RAID 1 Question

Hello.

I’ve been having a terrible time with my computer going through periods of horrible sluggishness and even freezing up for 15-20 seconds. It never crashes, just gums up or freezes then goes back to normal after a while. I’ve tried malware and spyware removal, but to no avail. The CPU temp is fine and the task manager (and process explorer) shows no applications of processes taking up resources while the problems are happening.

I’m thinking (because I can't think of anything else) that it might have something to do with the onboard (nVidia) RAID 1 I’ve got going on. My question is: can I just unplug one of the drives and boot up the other one? I’m thinking if the RAID is giving me problems, the one drive should be fine alone. However, if it’s some corrupt Windows files, I can just format the one drive, and when it’s up and running, pull the file I need (family pictures and videos) from the other drive.

What do you all think? Am I missing something? Does this sound like a good plan?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Tom

 

If you unplug one of the drives in a RAID 1 (mirrored) array, the PC will still boot. The catch is that, when you reconnect the other drive, the RAID will immediately kick in and re-mirror the drive (a full copying of the disk, not an incremental backup - very time consuming).

Check the manufacturer's website (Western Digital, Seagate, etc.) support and downloads section to see if firmware upgrades are available for your drives. Both WD and Seagate have had recent issues where - if a firmware update isn't installed - there is a significant risk of RAID issues and/or drive failure.

Also, check the motherboard mfr's support/download section for any RAID software updates.

Hope this helps.

 

Great advice - I haven't checked for software/firmware upgrades yet.

Honestly, I'm not sold on having RAID 1 going. I just did it a few years back to prevent data loss in case of a HD failure. If the upgrades don't work, I might just use one of the drive as a secondary storage drive, backing up the pictures and videos onto it occasionally. It's great that all of our family memories have gone digital, I'm just afraid to lose them due to "technical difficulties" one day.

 

For irreplaceable stuff like family photos, you should consider adding an online backup service such as Carbonite. In case of fire, flood, tornado, etc. both drives in a RAID array will be destroyed.

Two years ago, Carbonite saved my a:*** after my house was broken into. The thieves walked off with both the main PC and my external backup drive. Without the online backup, I would have lost about 10 years of photos and portfolio materials.