[sdiy] OT: how to save a dead Raided Drive?

[BrightBoy]

If the drive appears as one 500 GB drive and is comprised of two
250 GB drives, you are probably running Stripped Raid (aka Raid 0)

If one of the drives is truly bad you are completely out-of-luck 
because in the stripped configuration the controller constantly alternates
between each drive as it is writing data.  BOTH drives must be present
and functional to access the data.

If you want protection, you really need to be running Mirrored
Raid (aka Raid 1) where you have two identical drives that are
both written to at the same time (with the same data). The downside 
is that you don't get double the storage size as in Raid 0 (you need 
two 500 GB drives for a 550 GB Raid 1 config) but you don't have all
that inherent failure risk.  During read operations if one drive dies, 
the controller simply reads from the other functional drive.

Here's a fairly affordable Raid 1 external drive:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/usb/raid_1/Gmax

Jeff

-----Original Message-----
>From: Dan Snazelle <subjectivity at hotmail.com>
>Sent: Jun 26, 2009 9:28 PM
>To: sdiy <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
>Subject: [sdiy] OT: how to save a dead Raided Drive?
>
>
>I am asking on this list because I know that many of you have a lot of experience with computers:
>
>
>tonight i had the worst possible thing happen to my computer
>
>my 3yr old 500 gig lacie ext hard drive died. (and no, i had not backed it up...money for a new drive had been non-existent)
>
>
>
>this had three years worth of Logic song projects (many unmixed) ALL My datasheets, schematics, etc, as well as all my family's photos, etc.
>and over 100 gigs of itunes.
>
>now since it is 2 WestDigital 250gig drives in the box, i am assuming it is a raid setup with a disk controller card of some kind
>
>one thing i see happen a lot with my clients is that the disk controller dies,
>
>BUT then i wonder, if i get these drives into their own new enclosure, since they were in a RAID array, how do i get the
>computer to read them properly? does the raid system split the data among the 2 drives, or is it really just 2 separate drives that could 
>be read separately?
>
>it is very unlikely that both drives would mechanically fail at once right?
>
>
>anyway.....
>
>at least i got my OTA problem solved
>
>:(
>
>any help, thoughts , appreciated
>
>
>thanks
>
>
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