Using raid 1?

[raidnewbie]

I'm implementing a raid 1 system on my P5K motherboards. The manual assumes that I'm familiar with the operation of raid 1 (which I'm not). I've set-up the built-in JMicron raid 1 system with two identical Seagate 500GB sata drives set-up using e-sata port on the back of the box, and the JMicron sata e-2 internal motherboard connector. This motherboard doesn't have the Intel Matrix raid implementation. Some questions:
1.) Can I disconnect the e-sata raid 1 drive and run the system with only the internal raid 1 drive connected?
2.) Can I take one (or both) drives and put it on another (non-raid) computer as it's primary drive? Will it run on another identical JMicron raid system?
3.) It looks like I really need a spare drive on the shelf so that if one of the mirrored drives fails I can just plug in a new one & let it rebuild?
4.) If the "primary" drive fails can I just plug in a new drive and let it rebuild?
5.) Can I disconnect the mirrored drives, switch the bios back to non-raid, and run one of the drives on one of the standard Intel sata ports?
6.) What's the performance hit for the JMicron built-in raid 1 system over a single non-raid drive?
7.) It seems to take a couple of hours to rebuild a drive - is that normal?
8.) How does the JMicron raid system compare with the Intel Matrix raid system? Is it worth upgrading my motherboard? How does this compare to a 3Ware or Adaptec hardware solution?

[Adrian Wong]

Okay, as I would suggest for every newbie to RAID, it pays to read up on RAID before you decide on even implementing RAID.

Have you read our guides on RAID yet? If not, take a look :
- Tech ARP - The RAID Guide
- Tech ARP - Intel Matrix RAID Guide
- Tech ARP - RAID Optimization Guide

[raidnewbie]

OK - I read the articles on raid (again), but the explanation of the functionality is not there. For example, on the Asus P5K with the JMicron® JMB363 set-up for raid 1 with an e-sata drive, if one of the drives fails will the computer still operate on one drive? And then can I replace the bad drive and have it rebuild? What if I disconnect the e-sata drive?

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by raidnewbie

OK - I read the articles on raid (again), but the explanation of the functionality is not there. For example, on the Asus P5K with the JMicron® JMB363 set-up for raid 1 with an e-sata drive, if one of the drives fails will the computer still operate on one drive? And then can I replace the bad drive and have it rebuild? What if I disconnect the e-sata drive?

Hmm.. I have to be frank. I have no working experience with RAID. But AFAIK...

1. Yes, the computer should still run with a single hard drive because it's mirrored and not striped like in RAID 0.

2. Yes, you replace the bad drive and rebuild it using the surviving hard drive.

3. Good question. Never actually thought of that. But I should think that you will be told that the disconnected hard drive has "failed" because it's no longer available to the RAID controller. Why would you want to do that anyway?