Manual

OWC MERCURY ELITE PRO DUAL
DEVICE SETUP
10
2.3.2 RAID Modes
RAID 0 “Drive Striping” Mode:
The two drives show up as a single large volume with a size equal to the combined
capacities of both drives. RAID 0 is used when speed is the primary objective; it does not
provide data redundancy for protection. The reading and writing of data files is spread
across both drives to gain speed by distributing the workload. This allows for the fastest
data transfer rates, but if one drive fails the whole array becomes corrupted. The data will
be lost. Always maintain a full and separate backup of your RAID 0 data!
RAID 1 “Drive Mirroring” Mode:
The two drives show up as a single volume with a size equal to the capacity of a single
drive from the array. RAID 1 copies (or “mirrors”) the data from the first drive to the second
drive. This is useful when reliability and redundancy are more important than capacity
or maximum speed. When one drive fails, it can be replaced and the data can be rebuilt
automatically from the other functioning drive. See Section 2.4 for more details on the
drive replacement and rebuild process.
Span Mode:
Both drives show up as a single large volume, but one which functions differently than
RAID 0. The total size will depend on the drives installed; unlike RAID 0 you can use drives
of different capacities. A Span is an array (but not a RAID) in which the data is written
sequentially across the drives. When one drive becomes full, subsequent data is written
to the second drive. This combines the capacities of the drives, but it does not provide
any performance or data redundancy benefits.
Independent Drive Mode
Each drive will appear individually without being combined. If you are using drives of
differing capacity and model, or if you are using only one drive, this is the mode to use.
NOTE: Drives of identical model and capacity are required for RAID 0 and RAID 1.