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Toolkit User Manual
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RAID Setup

Toolkit helps you easily configure the initial RAID level and formatting for compatible drives.

Supported devicesProduct support pageUser manual
LaCie 2big RAID Product Documentation
LaCie Rugged RAID Pro Product Documentation
LaCie Rugged RAID Shuttle Product Documentation

Additional resources from LaCie RAID Manager

Toolkit is designed for quick configuration of your initial RAID level. Toolkit will not launch the RAID Setup wizard once the RAID level or drive format was changed from its factory setting.

Use LaCie RAID Manager if you need to make further changes to your RAID or drive format. LaCie RAID Manager helps you configure and manage arrays, set up important email alerts, measure the health of hard drives, and more.

RAID explained

RAID stands for redundant array of independent disks. RAID contains the word array, and the two terms are often used interchangably. An array is a combination of two or more physical disks that are presented to the operating system as a single volume.

Disks are combined into different RAID configurations known as RAID levels. The RAID level you choose depends on which storage attributes are most important to you:

Capacity The total amount of data you can store
Performance The speed at which data is copied
Protection The number of disks that can fail before data is lost

Toolkit RAID helps you initially configure select LaCie and Seagate RAID storage devices with two drives. Available levels are RAID 0 and RAID 1:

RAID 0—Data is not duplicated on both drives. This results in faster transfers and more storage, since the full capacity of both drives can be used to store unique data. However, RAID 0 lacks data protection. If a single drive fails, all data in the array is lost.

RAID 1—Data is duplicated on each disk in the array. If a drive fails, the data remains available on the other drive. However, this comes at a cost—since the same data is written to each drive, copying data takes longer and overall storage capacity is reduced by 50%. RAID 1 is a good choice when protecting your data is more important than performance or overall storage space.

To summarize, each RAID level has its own advantages:

RAID levelCapacityPerformanceProtectionFactory default
RAID 0 100% Excellent None Yes
RAID 1 50% Good Excellent No

RAID and data security

While RAID 1 can protect data in case of a single drive failure, it cannot guarantee complete data protection for all cases of hardware failure or data corruption. To help prevent data loss due to any extreme event, it’s reccommended that you maintain copies of your files on more than one device—for example, keep one copy on your 2-bay device and another copy on one of the following:

  • Another direct-attached storage (DAS) device
  • A network attached storage (NAS) device
  • Some form of removable or archival storage

Any loss, corruption or destruction of data while using a Seagate or LaCie hard drive or hard drive system is the sole responsibility of the user. Under no circumstances will Seagate or LaCie be held liable for the recovery or restoration of data.

Setting RAID level and formatting with Toolkit

  1. Follow the instructions in your product user manual for setting up your device and installing Toolkit.
  2. Toolkit will prompt you to set the RAID level for the newly detected RAID device. (If you don’t see the prompt—or you rejected it in the past—click on the RAID device on the Toolkit Main Menu.)
Full Capacity and Better Transfers (RAID 0) Configures the device as RAID 0. Full storage capacity is available for your files and your data transfers are faster. However, RAID 0 lacks an important feature: data protection. If a hard drive fails, all data in the array is lost.
File Protection (RAID 1) Configures the device as RAID 1. Each file is stored on both drives in the array, which means your data is still available if a single drive fails. However, storage space is cut by 50% and data transfers are not as fast as RAID 0.
  1. Follow any additional onscreen instructions to complete the setup.
  Toolkit will not launch the RAID Setup wizard if the RAID level or drive format was previously changed from its factory setting. See Additional resources from LaCie RAID Manager.