I was looking to buy a WD Duo 8TB but

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
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As with all my toys I try to do extensive research on the product before I go out and buy one.

I was all set to buy one… except I read somewhere that if you configured the Duo into Raid 1 (mirror drive) they are actually formatted in a different format then what all of us IT guys would think it should be formatted.

In other words, you cannot pull one of the mirror drive out and mount it on a USB Vantec mount and expect a PC to recognize the hard drive.

Thus mirroring defeats the purpose of a Duo? why is that we need the Duo to read and write to the Disk?

My Thanks for your answers whether it is from WD or the customers :stuck_out_tongue:

 So some users are saying no you cannot read one of the Raid 1 drives, and another is saying you can…

Here is one on Youtube…

Dower Chin  6 months ago

+Kay Pad Hello Kay, yes I can confirm that. I work with RAID 1 systems besides this unit for work. So long as your unit is setup for RAID 1 (Mirroring) and NOT RAID 0, both drives are a duplicate of themselves. You can take your drive out and plug it into an enclosure and read the data off of it.

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see "Drives not Readable outside MyBook Duo Enclosure?"

Ermorel the moderator says

"Do you have the drive set on any specific RAID configuration? 

 

If the unit is on RAID 0 you should be able to see them on the PC with a different eclosure. Howerver, if the unit is seto on RAID 1, they wont show up on the PC as normal due to the configuration."

I am hoping that was the other way. Raid 0 being stripped should not be readable outside but Raid 1, Mirror, should be a NTFS and it would be a copy of itself, thereby if one fails, or the unit fails, one drive can be mounted on an external exclosure and all data can then be read and copied.

So just need someone to confirm before I head out and buy one from NCIX who doesn’t offer refunds on Hard Drives.

Thanks again.