Often, users turn to a specialist if there is a task to combine their hard drives into a software logical array. How to combine disks without turning to the master? All this is easy to do according to the instructions in steps. She is in front of you.
Instructions: how to combine a hard drive into a bios
- We will look at how to configure the raid array through AMIBIOS SETUP. Interfaces of other BIOS manufacturers they have similar options, so sorting out the sample with the question of how to combine hard drives will not be difficult.
- Before starting the computer, run the utility for configuring the basic I / O chip. For AMIBIOS, a predefined launch is the del key. It must be periodically pressed until the BIOS interface is visible.
- Select the Serial ata Configuration category. It has the parameter " Configure Serial ata as ". Its value should be “ raid ”.
- After configuring the hard drives for the specified port for the array , save the changes. To do this, select "exit" or similar.
- Before starting the computer, click on the CTRL + I keys with a parallel press. If everything is done correctly, a service will appear on the screen to configure the raid array .
- In the parameters for the changes, select the direction of the array to be created, and the HDD devices to which the changes will be applied. Save the new settings and restart the computer.
- After entering the interface of your operating system, the computer will display several hard drives as a unified logical unit (like a single hard drive ).
What gives the union. How to combine drives
How to combine disks into an array, I hope you already understood. Now I will describe the advantages of such a step:
- Speeding up the disk subsystem (array type - stripe) . But there is a negative color to this advantage. When one of the solid-state drives breaks in the array, the rest of the information in the array is also lost.
- Duplicate mirror. The ability to duplicate information in several "mirrors" - an array of a pair of hard drives.
As soon as one of the disks becomes unusable, it is duplicated by the nearest “mirror”, which will create a reliable fault-tolerant chain in data storage. Unfortunately, this type of array does not affect the speed.
Setting for RAID Controller
If your raid controller is wired into your motherboard , then the instructions for combining hard drives will be slightly different.
- After changing the BIOS settings, as usual, reboot your host. Then press F2 repeatedly. This initializes the array settings window.
- In the optional menu, specify the hard drives to create a single structure.
- Confirm that the array needs to be created (array create).
- In the interface that appears, select an array category: type 0 - to speed up work with data, type 1 - to create fault-tolerant copies of your partitions.
operating system
To ensure that the time spent is not wasted, make sure there are built-in or additional raid drivers for the current OS. As a rule, if there is an array controller on the board, then documentation and drivers on the media — a floppy disk or CD — are required to go to it.
Before combining drives - requirements for hard drives
The current hard drives for the array must be developed by one corporation and have approximately the same size. If you try to combine the new HDD with an already working second hard drive, all information will be deleted in a certain way.
Therefore, unlike simple formatting, where data can be restored using some software, data formatted using the RAID method will be deleted permanently.
Ability to restore raid elements on some array hard drive
In addition, arrays are recoverable if one of the elements of this structure does not work correctly. For this procedure, they use the notorious Acronis Disk Director or similar software. But the description of this process is beyond the scope of this article, so I will limit myself to mentioning such a possibility.