RAID questions
 

Ok, I'm going to setup a raid for someone with 2 SATA hdd (maxtor (current hdd with data on it) and samsung (will be the primary).
1)So if I setup the RAID, both hdd will be formated, right ?
2)And if I then copy all his data (image file) to the samsung on another computer, plug it back into his and let hem rebuild the raid arrays, everything will be copied from the samsung to the maxtor ?
3)And if I then unplug the maxtor (in a removable sata rack), work a while with only the samsung (still with raid setup) and plug the maxtor back in and rebuild it, everything will again be copied to the maxtor, and can the raid work long time with only 1 hdd ?
4)And last question, if the samsung gets ****ed up, can I just swap the maxtor and the samsung and rebuild it so all data will be copied from the maxtor to the samsung ?
Am I correct or not ?

Ow, PS, sorry for the ultra crapy english ;) .

what raid will you using? 0 / 1 ?

1 (if that is mirroring, damn, I always mix those 2 up :( )

1)So if I setup the RAID, both hdd will be formated, right ?

you will be creating a virtual drive with exist of the 2 physical drives, the size will be equal to the size of the smallest one. but during creating you have to build the mirror, if you select the right "master" then all that data will be copied to the 2nd drive.

2)And if I then copy all his data (image file) to the samsung on another computer, plug it back into his and let hem rebuild the raid arrays, everything will be copied from the samsung to the maxtor ?

see answer at point 1), this is not necassary, but do keep the image file as a backup "in case of"


3)And if I then unplug the maxtor (in a removable sata rack), work a while with only the samsung (still with raid setup) and plug the maxtor back in and rebuild it, everything will again be copied to the maxtor, and can the raid work long time with only 1 hdd ?

when you remove one drive the mirror will have a "broken" status, when plugging the maxtor back you have to recreate the mirror, this is a very lenghty process. hours.

4)And last question, if the samsung gets ****ed up, can I just swap the maxtor and the samsung and rebuild it so all data will be copied from the maxtor to the samsung ?

so you basically want a real-time ghost image on a 2nd drive? wouldn't it be faster and easier to schedule a weekly dump of an image from the Samsung to the Maxtor without using raid? Because if you have the 2 drives in RAID-1 and you windows setup get corrupted then that will be on both drives at the same time (ask Bosw8er). RAID-1 can only protect against hardware failures and is aimed at that, but what you are looking for is more like software protection from Windows ****-ups. Norton Ghost + the maxtor as 2nd master on the extra SATA ports without RAID is what I suggest you go for. Using RAID for the service you want it a lenghty process and not risk free and you have the possibility for **** ups also.

by the way, the ghost image will be compressed, so let's say both drives are 80GB, then an image of drive A (78gb full) on drive B will take less space :)