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Resolved Question

Formatting hardware raid 0 question

Oct 15, 2018 9:30PM PDT

So i did ask a similar question earlier but i want expand on the answer slightly. I have an external 2 bay enclosure that has hardware raid and i plan to use raid 0. So should i do a full windows(10) format with each drive separately then configure them in the hardware raid 0 or should i just put them in the enclosure, set it to raid 0, and then do a full windows format? Is there a difference? I always do a full format with new drives just to be sure there is no major issues from the start. If there is no difference would it be faster to set them up in the hardware raid 0 then do a full windows format?

Thanks again so much for all of your help,
Shane

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SHANECOOK1989 has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer

Best Answer

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No. Here's why.
Oct 16, 2018 9:39AM PDT

Your desktop format and RAID is not what the enclosure supports so it's some wasted effort.

However if you were to do that you could check the SMART VALUES 01 and 07 afterwards (I use Speccy for that) and see if the drives are in perfect condition.

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Thanks!
Oct 16, 2018 12:09PM PDT

Thank you again so much for all of your help! I cant tell you how much i appreciate it. I will have to research that program. So will i have to run this program with the raid(hardware) enclosure set to raid 0? Or have it set up as 2 single disks when i do the format?

Thank you again so much!!!!
Shane

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Speccy would be on the Windows PC.
Oct 16, 2018 12:12PM PDT

I brought that up since it's been the easiest way to get a standard way to those values.

-> As to disk setup, whatever you do in the PC gets wiped out as the drives go into the NAS boxes. Why? Because most of the NAS out there have their own formatting systems.

This means that I went with how what you wanted to do (format in the PC) COULD BE USEFUL to head off future headaches. HOW? By getting a look at how healthy or not those drives are.

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Again thank you.
Oct 16, 2018 12:19PM PDT

Thank you again. I really appreciate your time and help. The nice thing about the enclosure is that i can set it up to either single disks, raid 0, raid 1, or spanning. So it looks like i can set them up as single, use this software to check the drives then set them to the hardware raid 0. Thank you again and i am trying to learn what is best. There is quite a bit of conflicting info out there and i know if i ask you i can be 100% confident i am getting the right information and doing it correctly.

Thanks,
Shane