User guide

OWC MERCURY ELITE PRO Qx2
SYSTEM SETUP
7
RAID 1 “Drive Mirroring” Mode (Two Drives Installed)
Dial position: 1
Storage Capacity
Data Safety
Performance
The drives show up as one volume with a size equal to the capacity of one of the two
drives used in the array. RAID 1 copies (or “mirrors”) a set of data from the first drive to the
second drive. This is useful when reliability and redundancy are more important than ca-
pacity. When one drive fails, it can be replaced and the data will be rebuilt automatically.
RAID 10 “Drive Mirroring with Striping” Mode (Four Drives Installed)
Dial position: 1
Storage Capacity
Data Safety
Performance
The drives show up as one volume with a size equal to the combined capacities of half
of the drives used in the array. RAID 10 creates an exact copy (or “mirror”) of a set of data
but also uses a RAID 0 “stripe” for speed. When one drive fails, it can be replaced and the
data will be rebuilt automatically.
RAID 5 “Drive Striping with Parity” Mode (Three or Four Drives Installed)
Dial position: 3
Storage Capacity
Data Safety
Performance
The drives show up as one volume with a size equal to the combined capacities of all
the drives in the array, minus one drive. RAID 5 uses block-level striping with parity data
distributed across all disks and therefore provides the perfect balance between high
performance and data integrity. When one drive fails, it can be replaced and the data
will be rebuilt automatically.
2.4 CHANGING DRIVES
2.4.1 Adding and Removing Drives in Independent Mode
When the Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 is set to independent mode, you can add or remove any
drive without needing to create a new RAID set.
IMPORTANT NOTE: To avoid data corruption it is essential to unmount all drives and
turn off the Qx2 before removing or adding a new drive. If you
physically remove a drive from the Qx2 without turning off the
Qx2 first, any mounted drives will improperly unmount from the
computer.