Are you ready to RAID?Everyone is talking about RAID hard drive setups and it’s the only way to fly if you want to protect your images from hard drive crashes – which will eventually happen to you, if it hasn’t already. Here’s a simple RAID setup that I installed for our Asukabook staff at the office. I’ve documented the entire setup process and listed the parts I purchased and where from. This was the easiest setup I’ve done yet! Even a monkey could do it…well, maybe an orangutan, they’re supposedly smarter.
This is a basic RAID level 1 setup, which simply means two hard drives are mirrored and look and act like one to your computer. You use it like you normally would, except every file is written to both drives simultaneously, saving you from having to duplicate it yourself.
How it will work: The case holds 2 bare drives. Each drive I used is 500 GB, but you can use any two identical drives. Since one mirrors the other, you have the actual useable storage space of one 500GB drive. The case connects to my Macs via Firewire 800, but you can use USB 2.0 if you don’t have Firewire 800. USB is slower however. This setup will connect fine to either a MAC or PC.
Parts used:
2 bay hardware RAID case
part# 3610-WAC Dual SATA HDD firewire + USB 2.0 hardware RAID case
price: $399
source: http://www.cooldrives.com
2 – Seagate 500 GB SATA-II bare drives
(note: Seagate is considered one of the most reliable drives, don’t skimp here!)
part: SEAST3500630AS
price: $215 each
source: http://www.macsales.com
Here’s the stuff (minus the cables and other doodads) Notice how nice and small the drive case is. IMPORTANT: Be sure to discharge any static from your body before touching the drives. You can touch a metal part of your computer or grounded metal object. Use a static wrist strap if available. Don’t drag your feet on the carpet while doing this. Don’t put your finger in an electrical socket.
1) remove the trays from the case using the plastic key.
2) remove the plastic blocks by removing 4 screws.
!http://www.kkphoto-design.com/blog_images/raid_03.JPG!
3) place the bare drive in the sleeve and tighten 6 screws. Do this for both trays.

4) Insert the tray back in the case CAREFULLY. Pull out the lever (which releases when the plastic key is poked in the hole), then gently push the sleeve in then close the lever until it locks.

5) Power on the drive and you should see the HDD OK message like this:

6) Plug the drive into your computer and you should see a message to initialize the drives, click “Initialize”.

7) In the drive setup utility, name your drives and choose the options as below. PC users will see a different window, but just initialize like you would any other new drive.

That’s it! Now, you can start copying images to this drive. If a drive should ever fail, you’ll hear an alarm from the case. It will tell you which drive is faulty, so remove it and replace it with a new matching drive and put it back in. The case will automatically start to rebuild that drive, copying everything from the other drive to it.
If I have any long term issues to report on this setup, I’ll post them here. But so far, it’s working perfectly.
Aloha,
Kevin