Raid Modes - OWC Mercury Rack Pro User Manual & Owners Manual

OWC Mercury Rack Pro

1.6.2 RAID Modes

IMPORTANT NOTES:
Drives of identical size and model are required for all RAID types
!
other than Clear & JBOD (Independent Drive) Mode and JBOD
(SPAN) "Combine" Mode.
Changing the RAID mode will require you to reformat the drives.
Clear & JBOD (Independent Drive) Mode
Switch setting: DOWN-DOWN-DOWN
Each drive will appear as a single volume. If you wish to use a mixed variety of capac-
ity and model drives, this is the mode to use. To swap or replace drives, dismount all
drives and power the OWC Mercury Rack Pro off.
JBOD (SPAN) "Combine" Mode
Switch setting: UP-DOWN-UP
The drives show up as one large single volume. The total size will depend on the
drives installed, you can use drives of different capacities. JBOD (SPAN) is an array (not
RAID) in which the data is written across drives sequentially. This is done to combine
the capacities of the drives, but it does not provide any performance or redundancy
benefits.
Storage Capacity
RAID 0 "Drive Striping" Mode
Switch setting: UP-UP-UP
The drives show up as one large single volume. RAID 0 is used when speed is the pri-
mary objective, but does not have any redundancy for protection. Data is alternated
very quickly across two or more drives to gain speed by essentially distributing the
workload. Since data is written without parity data-checking, it allows for the fastest
data transfer rates, but if one drive fails, the whole array can become corrupted and
data will be lost. Always maintain a backup of your data!
Storage Capacity
Be sure to back up your data first!
Data Safety
Data Safety
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Performance
Performance
!