I have a question about adding disks to a RAID 1 set up on a Windows Box, such that it shows up as a separate disk from the existing RAID volume.

In essence, the set up at the moment is of two 300GB SATA II disks acting as a single 300GB volume (RAID 1). I need to add another disk (probably 1TB) into this, but I don't want it to be part of the RAID array; I want it as a separate disk visible to Windows (drive D:\ in Windows' parlance). I've had a look at what I presume is the RAID controller on the motherboard (both existing hard drives are plugged into it) and it has a total of 4 slots (two free).

I've had trouble finding spec for the motherboard. It's says it's a Microstar Model MS9179, but searching on Google for that wasn't amazingly useful, although this site seems like it's the right one.

If I simply plug in my new hard drive, will it show up as a new disk (D:\)? Or will it try to become part of the RAID 1 array?

Any thoughts or pointers would be much appreciated.

Well RAID 1 can only have two disks so it won't try and add to the existing array since it can't.
With Windows RAID (software) nothing happens when you add a drive you have to tell windows what to do with it. With hardware raid most controllers will first replace a failed/removed drive.

Thanks.

I'm not sure if it's hardware or software RAID, so I suppose I'll just plug the new disk in and see what happens. There is a software configuration utility which seems to allow changing from RAID 1 to RAID 0 etc., so perhaps that's where I'll configure this new disk. Either way, I want to keep the existing set up, but I just want to add a new disk for storage.