Hi,

Just got a 1TB external drive and I think I've set it up correctly for RAID (RAID 1)
It's now 2 500G drives. How do I test that's it's working properly? Should I only 'see' one drive?

The manual that came with it wasn't much help.

Thanks

Darren

Have you RAIDed two separate 500GB drives, or partitioned one 1TB drive into two 500GB drives?

I've RAIDed 2 separate drives

What brand and model is the external drive?

For RAID 1, with two 500GB drives, you should see one volume only of 500GB.
It sounds like you have set the drives as JBOD (just a bunch of disks).

I can only see one 500G drive - is there any way of testing?
Drive is a WD MyBook

Unplug one of your drives and see what happens
If it still works - RAID is alive, if it goes to shit, it doesn't' work properly

So, you have something like this?
It would have been really helpful if, in your first post, you had listed exactly what model of drive(s) you have, whether you have set a 'switch' somewhere on the drive that says 'RAID 1' or if you have tried to setup a software RAID.
More info dude, as it is now I reckon all your data will be lost as soon as you unplug the drive next

it's this model WD My Book Premium Edition II 1 TB Triple Interface Hard Drives ( WDG2T10000 )

I used the included software RAID manager to set it to RAID 1

Is there anything else you need to know - sorry I'm new to this stuff.

Ohhh, there's no real way to test that unless a drive in it fails. If you want, you can open it up and unplug a disk and see what happens. Otherwise, you're left just to trust it.

Remember, RAID is not a backup!

What do you mean RAID is not a backup? Isn't that the whole Idea?

Looks like you have done the right thing and have RAID set up correctly.
I think what the big man above means is that the meaning of a backup is data copied off to an alternative location. So, if you are using your drive for, as an example, you iTunes library, it really is a single copy of the data. It is protected somewhat from drive failure, but not from user error, software error etc. So, RAID is not a backup...

Ideally a backup is something that survives if a meteorite falls on your house, drive controller crashes, first ever OS X virus wipes everything, etc. etc.

RAID protects you from none of those things, only from (single!) drive failure. How seriously you treat backup depends on how important your data is.

Personally, I'm most worried about a single drive failure since you can very easily protect against that, thus I have a RAID 5. Offsite backup really isn't a cost effective option for me with as much data as I have anyway.