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enter image description hereCan I see the contents of a SAS drive that was part of a RAID array?

In other words, I need to connect the SAS drive to any other PC (Or Server Machine) so that it appears as secondary drive and its content are not affected.

EDIT: There are 4 drives in total and RAID 5. I've all four of them.

MJ Khan
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    What type of RAID? – Eric F Mar 26 '19 at 12:32
  • With very few exceptions the answer is going to be no because the data usually is spread across multiples drives on an array and in addition, with hardware raids, a manufacturer might do any kind interesting stuff. – Seth Mar 26 '19 at 12:38
  • If it was RAID 1 then maybe, any other then probably not. – Mokubai Mar 26 '19 at 13:04

1 Answers1

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More than likely, you cannot.

First off, this drive was part of a RAID volume. Unless this drive was RAID 1, which mirrors the contents to all drives, the data is not in a readable format. RAID spreads the data across all drives in the volume for speed and redundancy. In this case, there are no files to be read, you need the entire RAID volume to read the file system.

Secondly, in order to physically access the drive, you would need to connect the SAS drive to another SAS controller. While this is not uncommon on other servers, you would need to purchase a SAS controller for a PC.

Keltari
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  • Ok... so If I have all the drives (4 in total, and RAID 5), can I connect them in a way that they act as slave, and not primary bootable drive? – MJ Khan Mar 26 '19 at 14:40
  • if it was a 4 drive RAID5, 3 drives would be enough. – Gizmo Mar 26 '19 at 14:47
  • So how can I connect those 3 drives to other PC/Server Machine? any link or help hints will be greatly appreciated. – MJ Khan Mar 26 '19 at 14:53
  • @Khan you have to connect them to a similar or same RAID adapter that can recognize the existing RAID volume. – Appleoddity Mar 26 '19 at 20:38