Advice on deleting RAID volumes without losing data. I'll try & explain.

[Matt_Stevens]

Okay gang, I have a system I built last year. Huge sucker, but the HDD's are small at this point.

I will leave the SSD OS drive alone and the D drive, which is two Samsung Spinpojnts in a RAID 0.

The issue is Drive E. That's two 1TB Samsungs in a Mirrored Raid. MB does the RAID and of course I run Intel Rapid Storage Technology in Win7. Those two HDD's came from an older system, were Mirror Raided and amazingly when I booted them up in the new PC they were good to go! All data in-tact (this is after having made the correct BIOS adjustments such as pre-setting to RAID instead of AHCI or whatever it is called, installing Windows 7 + Intel RST and THEN adding the drives, making a RAID in the BIOS, etc.).

Now I want to take them out and instead of two drives in a mirrored RAID just have one 3TB drive in there. (or possibly two 3TB drives in a RAID 1)

If I go into the BIOS and delete a RAID volume that will essentially quick format the drives, right? Or wrong?

So do I just take those drives out, reboot, then shut down, add my new drive and the BIOS will obviously see no more RAID?

What is the proper procedure? I really do not want to screw sh*t up. And I would very much like to keep one of those two 1TB drives as a backup with the data in-tact.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

If I go into the BIOS and delete a RAID volume that will essentially quick format the drives, right? Or wrong?

Pretty much.

So do I just take those drives out, reboot, then shut down, add my new drive and the BIOS will obviously see no more RAID?

What is the proper procedure? I really do not want to screw sh*t up. And I would very much like to keep one of those two 1TB drives as a backup with the data in-tact.

Thanks for the advice!

Do you have the data backed up somewhere?

Here's what I'd do:

1) Back up everything.
2) Reflect on the consequences of not having backups.
3) Pull out one of the mirrored pair.
4) Install a 3TB drive in its place.
5) Copy the data from the degraded RAID to the new 3TB drive.
6) Back up everything.
7) Go into BIOS and destroy the raid group
8) Reformat the 1TB drive
9) Copy the data back to it from the 3TB drive.
10) Back up everything.

Incidentally, using Windows Dynamic Disks and software RAID, you can convert a disk "live" between a mirror and a singleton pretty easily. Might want to switch to that and avoid using motherboard RAID if you can help it.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Oh it's backed up. No doubt. To an external Synology that is itself in a RAID.

I am confused with your advice in installing the 3TB drive when the MB will have it in a RAID setting. And more confused by copying data from the one 1TB drive that would be left in the PC over to the 3TB and THEN destroying the RAID.

Sorry, that makes my head hurt and seems all backwards. ????

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Oh it's backed up. No doubt. To an external Synology that is itself in a RAID.

I am confused with your advice in installing the 3TB drive when the MB will have it in a RAID setting. And more confused by copying data from the one 1TB drive that would be left in the PC over to the 3TB and THEN destroying the RAID.

Sorry, that makes my head hurt and seems all backwards. ????

The motherboard shouldn't have it in a RAID setting - it's a new drive.

If your motherboard RAID is assigned per-port and nor per drive, you may need to toggle RAID on that port off. But the remaining half of the mirrored raid will still be accessible in degraded mode, just like it would be if one of the drives in the mirror had failed. (That's kinda the point of a mirrored raid.)

That's all assuming you're completely out of SATA ports internally and don't have a USB/SATA enclosure handy to hold the 3TB drive while you're copying data to it.

Of course, since it IS backed up, you can just pull the 1TB drives out, install your 3TB drives, and restore the backup to it.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Okay... So if I understand you correctly I remove one of the RAIDED drives and the other will still be in a RAID Mode... But I can then install the 3TB drive and the MB will not look at it as being RAID and I can therefore still use that new 3TB and then copy over everything from the 1TB RAIDED (and degraded) drive).

Then I power down, remove the drive, power up and DELETE the RAID which will not touch that 3TB drive... Right? Do I have it?

Sorry this is new for me and I really want to be sure.

 

[sdifox]

Get a disk cloning software. Your new hdd didn't come with acronis?

 

[Anteaus]

If your motherboard is in RAID mode and you add a drive, that drive will be JBOD. As far as the user is concerned it is just a normal SATA drive. It only becomes RAID specific when you create a RAID array with it. You should be able to attached the 3TB, partition and format it like normal in Windows, and then copy the files over. After that you can remove the 2 1TB drives from the array and partition and format them as normal drives. If you aren't going to be doing RAID, I'd recommend you then switch from RAID to AHCI mode assuming your motherboard works as such.

The real trick is preserving one of the 1TB drives while still in RAID. To be completely honest, I would use this opportunity to purchase a external drive for backup and create your second copy there. That will release you from worrying about the RAID.

-------
From this point is purely my opinion and subject to different points of view.

I believe 1x3TB Internal + 2x3TB External (Backup [3 copies total]) is better than 2x3TB Internal RAID 1 + 1x3TB External (Backup). This is assuming you actually backup your data. RAID 1 does not count as a backup and is considered one copy regardless of how many mirrors you have because an array is treated as singular.

I may be preaching to the choir here so please ignore this if so.

 

[nerp]

Just duplicate the data on the raid to the 3TB drive. Then kill the raid. Adding a drive to the system shouldn't affect the raid as long as you don't switch SATA ports.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

One thing I should mention is my SATA ports are completely full. I have no room left to add anything internally. One reason I am thinking of removing the 1TB RAID drives and replacing them with a single 3TB drive is it gives me some extra room. With my external backup I don't need to have that RAID.

I have plenty of external cases, that is not an issue. I am just not certain about how to go about deleting the RAID, what order, etc, but I think I have it now. So I guess the best thing to do is back up everything to one of my external drives, delete the RAID, remove the drives, install the 3TB and just go from there. Kind of easy.

My D drive is a RAID 0 so I cannot change the MB to AHCI. Those two Samsung Spinpoints move really fast in a ZERO and help with my editing. They act as my scratch disc.

 

[sdifox]

One thing I should mention is my SATA ports are completely full. I have no room left to add anything internally. One reason I am thinking of removing the 1TB RAID drives and replacing them with a single 3TB drive is it gives me some extra room. With my external backup I don't need to have that RAID.

I have plenty of external cases, that is not an issue. I am just not certain about how to go about deleting the RAID, what order, etc, but I think I have it now. So I guess the best thing to do is back up everything to one of my external drives, delete the RAID, remove the drives, install the 3TB and just go from there. Kind of easy.

My D drive is a RAID 0 so I cannot change the MB to AHCI. Those two Samsung Spinpoints move really fast in a ZERO and help with my editing. They act as my scratch disc.

Switch to one ssd for scratch and you too can shed tears of joy

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Switch to one ssd for scratch and you too can shed tears of joy

When the 1TB models reach an affordable price point I will be all over them.