Add new HDD for Mirroring

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I have the following config.

AMD 3.5 GHz AM3 Phenom II 970
ASUS M5A88-M Motherboard
Seagate Barracuda 1 TB HDD

I plan to add another HDD for data mirroring. Will I be able to do without disturbing the current configuration? How risky it is?

Any help is highly appreciated.

Not any risky business. I think your Motherboard supports software RAID 0 and 1 and you can add another HDD with Mirroring enabled in BIOS to enable RAID configuration.

Raid 1 wont create any conflict but it is highly advised to back up before going in for Raid 1.

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I wouldn't suggest to use raid controller from the motherboard. If for some reason the motherboard gets burned or is not working you need to use the exact same model and version motherboard with same version of our damaged motherboard to make the raid work again or else you will loose all the data.

If the mirroring your are planning is to keep your data safe from hdd failures i would recommend some folder sync software and sync your data folders to another drive.

If by any chance you are using Windows 8, and if you can afford for atleast 2 drives other than OS drive,you can use Storage Spaces for Mirroring/Parity

For mirroring (ie.e RAID 1) it is highly recommended to use same HDD. Hence adding another Barracuda 1 TB will the best option IMO.

Edit: Sorry, this post is meant for RAID 1.

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raid-0(stripping) is only recommended for speed & not reliability because if one disk fails then raid-0 will also fail unlike raid-1(mirroring) where if one disk fail the raid will continue to work with other hard disk.

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leelaprasad said:
I wouldn't suggest to use raid controller from the motherboard. If for some reason the motherboard gets burned or is not working you need to use the exact same model and version motherboard with same version of our damaged motherboard to make the raid work again or else you will loose all the data.

I didn't get this point. With mirroring, data is intact and same on both drives in case of a MB failure, right? Can't we use either of the drives in such cases?

Ya, most of the people were suggesting you the problems with RAID 0. RAID 1 does not have problems like that as you already know.

RAID 1 keeps the system going if a drive has a hardware failure. Using backups means the computer is down, you restore the computer and restore your files.

But keep in mind that RAID 1 does not replace backup because you still need to protect against disaster, accidental deletes/overwrites, corruption, etc. So in my view, if you are already backing up, RAID 1 is overkill for a home system. If you are a professional, then your computer being down while you rebuild/restore stops you from working, so it becomes more compelling.

Any Raid create back up first. If alls well and set,delete the back up.

Cilus said:
Ya, most of the people were suggesting you the problems with RAID 0. RAID 1 does not have problems like that as you already know.

Exactly!
And sorry, in my previous post, I was talking about RAID1, but because of a typo its meaning changed altogether.

@OP: RAID 1 is the best choice as it provides mirroring, and for that use of same HDD is highly recommended.

RAID 0 provides stripping, which will provide you better speed, but if any drive in RAID0 array fails, the whole array will fail.

powerpc said:
I didn't get this point. With mirroring, data is intact and same on both drives in case of a MB failure, right? Can't we use either of the drives in such cases?

Mirroring (i.e. RAID 1) will provide you this facility.
In case of failure of single HDD, you can replace the other one in the array with a new one and the data from older drive will automatically get copied to new drive.

And, RAID 1 isn't overkill for home system. I run raid 1 in my vmwre server.

This has almost become a Tutorial for RAID0 Vs Raid 1

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powerpc said:
I didn't get this point. With mirroring, data is intact and same on both drives in case of a MB failure, right? Can't we use either of the drives in such cases?

See when you configure the drives as Raid 1 say using the mother board raid control, the underlying data storage pattern will be different and if you take a single hard drive and connect to another system it won't have any readable data without the actual raid card you used for raid.

Don't go into Raid without knowing completely what you are doing, you may end-up in a complete data loss.

And one more thing when you create a Raid 1 with the one board controller all the existing data will be wiped out before it creates the Raid( AS of my knowledge.)

Back up , is important. Create an Image before going any Raid.