Is there a RAID 1 standard on how HDs are arrange

[Donald]

I have (had) a Startech 2X HD unit that supports most RAID formats and has eSTA connectivity which I used. The HDs are in carriers that are hot pluggable. The unit will no longer power up, but I assume both disks are fine. I have sent it back to Startech (without the dHDs of course) (and they paid the shipping to them) for warranty. However its listed as UNAVAILABLE on their website now, which has me a little worried.

So if I cannot a repaired or replaced unit, can these 2 HDs go into another RAID unit and work fine, no data loss? The unit does the RAID itself, I do not believe Windows is aware that its RAID as one can only "see" one HD from Windows. That leads me to think that maybe the disks may have some extra proprietary stuff on them.

 

[d00df00d]

Depends on how the controller handled it. You might even be able to connect just one hard drive and access all the data.

 

[simple_gifts]

On the commerical RAID controllers I've dealt with the controller can detect when a new logical volume is attached and asks whether the RAID volume should be "initialized" or "imported" It isn't exactly proprietary info, but really just how the controller handles the RAID group. The controller should "know" how those disks were configured. I don't really want to speculate on how a consumer unit might handle this however. Best ask the company about your concerns.

If they send you a newer unit (different model) I suspect all bets are off.

 

[Donald]

Well I give StarTech a thumbs-up. They sent me a new RAID enclosure pretty quickly, paid postage both ways, no questions. They had set aside some new units for warranty work even though the RAID enclosure is listed as not available. The drives are on plug & play carriers so it took all of 10 seconds to install the drive/carrier into the new enclosure. Double check the RAID pin switch and start a backup.

 

[Donald]

And many hours latter the rebuild/verify to drive 2 is complete. The drives are 2 TB each. For some unknown reason, the RAID enclosure decided to do a complete rebuild, which is fine. And it does take awhile. Host traffic has priority to the HD so the enclosure can do the rebuild on its own.