Working with volumes. How to combine disks HDD

Often, users turn to a specialist if the problem arises to merge their hard drives into a software logical array. How to combine disks without referring to the master? All this is not difficult to do according to the instructions in the steps. She is in front of you.

Instructions: how to combine a hard disk into a BIOS

• We'll look at how to configure the raid array via AMIBIOS SETUP. Interfaces of other BIOS manufacturers Have similar options, so sorting out the model with the question of how to merge hard drives will not be difficult.
• Before starting the computer, run the basic I / O chip setup utility. For AMIBIOS, a predefined startup is the del key. It should be periodically pressed to the state of visibility of the BIOS interface.
• Select the category " Serial ata Configuration ". In it the parameter " Configure Serial ata as ". Its value should be " raid ".
• After configuring the hard disks 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 click. If done correctly, the screen displays the service for setting up 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 disks as a combined logical unit (as one hard drive ).

What does the union give. How to combine disks

How to merge disks into an array, I hope you have already understood. Now I'll paint the advantages of this step:

• Acceleration of the disk subsystem (array type - stripe) . But there is a negative color of this advantage. When one of the solid-state disks is broken 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 the data storage. Unfortunately, this type of array does not affect the speed.

Configuring for a RAID controller

If your motherboard is wired with a raid controller , then the instruction on how to combine hard disks will be slightly different.

1. After changing BIOS settings, as usual, reboot your host. Then press F2 repeatedly. This initializes the array settings window.
2. In the optional menu, specify hard disks to create a single structure.
3. Confirm that the array needs to be created (array create).
4. In the interface that appears, select the array category: type 0 - to speed up data handling, type 1 - to create fault-tolerant copies of your partitions.

operating system

To spend time 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 the documentation and the driver on the medium - a floppy disk or CD-ROM - must be sent to it.

Before you combine disks - the requirements for hard disks

The current hard drives for the array must be developed by one corporation and have approximately the same size. If you try to combine a new HDD c with a working second hard disk - all information will be removed in a certain way.

Therefore, unlike simple formatting, where data can be recovered with some software, data formatted in RAID mode will be permanently deleted.

Ability to restore raid elements on some hard drive array

In addition, arrays are subject to recovery if one of the elements of this structure does not work correctly. For this procedure, 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 this possibility.