Can I switch a raid array from raid 1 to raid without losing my information?

[mrgoblin]

Basically I want to know if its possible to switch from raid 1 mirroing to striping without losing all my data and reformatting. Thanks!

 

[EeyoreX]

I am 99% certain that you will need to delete the mirrored array before you can create the stripped array. Ghost is your friend in this case.

\Dan

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

Probably not..Might have to back it up using Ghost or Drive Image, And then restoring your system after you get the drives re-configured the way you want them.

 

[mrgoblin]

How would I ghost the drive when they are mirrored? Wouldnt I lose the info anyway if I had to reformat both? Kinda confused as to what im supposed to do. I know ghost basically copies the drive but where would i ghost it to? They are currently in raid 1

 

[Viper96720]

Since their mirrored they have the same info on both drives. You have 2 drives with exactly the same thing on them hence mirrored. If it was striped then some info would be on one some on the other. Ghost the drive and you'll have the info from it.

 

[yhelothar]

I think if you are using the Intel ICH5 RAID controller you can in windows, I saw the option in the utility. Make sure you have enough space too, since you will be losing half your space going from 0 to 1.

 

[mrgoblin]

im going from 1 to 0 but ..

 

[thomsbrain]

i don't think you can do that.

you can go from one drive to two drives mirrored without changing anything, but that's it. any other changes require you to make a new array, which means reformating.

i've been down the RAID 0 road though, and i don't recommend it. 2 broken arrays in 6 months, and i lost all my email from like 5 years in one of the broken arrays. stick with your RAID 1. you don't really notice the difference in speed except for extended transfers and video editing and stuff.

 

[Cheetah8799]

As thomsbrain said, you can't go from RAID 1 to 0.

As he also said, RAID 0 is more likely to break, so make sure you have a good backup solution. I am going to move my gaming rig to RAID 0 to try to squeeze more performance out of the hard drives, but I have a spare drive for backups, and I do periodic cd backups as well, so I'm not too worried.

As for going from RAID 0 to RAID 1, you can't do that either. All you can do is if you start with 1 drive, you can add a 2nd drive and create a RAID 1 mirror with both of them. That's it.

 

[boomerang]

You've got two drives in RAID 1. In Windows they appear as one drive.

You need to copy, or image, that drive onto a third drive.

Create your RAID 0 array.

Copy or restore from your third drive to your newly created array.

Ghost should do this although I have no personal experience with using Ghost for this. Boot off the Ghost disk, if Ghost can see your drive now it will see it after your RAID 0 array is created.

As others have said, you need a third disk anyway for backups. If your RAID 0 array goes South, you'd better have a backup. I back mine up daily.

 

[mrgoblin]

Originally posted by: thomsbrain
i don't think you can do that.

you can go from one drive to two drives mirrored without changing anything, but that's it. any other changes require you to make a new array, which means reformating.

i've been down the RAID 0 road though, and i don't recommend it. 2 broken arrays in 6 months, and i lost all my email from like 5 years in one of the broken arrays. stick with your RAID 1. you don't really notice the difference in speed except for extended transfers and video editing and stuff.

Its a storage issue not speed

 

[Terranboy]

What exactly is RAID 0? Is it possible to not use RAID at all? I have one 40gb with Windows installed and its almost full (down to 5gb or so) I got a 80gb not long ago and slapped it in, formatted it, activated it and started installing crap on it. I have drive C: and E: Is this any kind of RAID set up?

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

Originally posted by: Terranboy
What exactly is RAID 0? Is it possible to not use RAID at all? I have one 40gb with Windows installed and its almost full (down to 5gb or so) I got a 80gb not long ago and slapped it in, formatted it, activated it and started installing crap on it. I have drive C: and E: Is this any kind of RAID set up?

No, You do not have any sort of raid array setup.. You just have two seperate drives. RAID 0 is striping of two matched-size/brand drives. Data going to and from the drives is split up evenly amongst those two drives, Thus, When calling up a large file or game, You got two drives spitting out data instead of just one. RAID 0 is for speed. RAID 1 mirrors the other drive for data redundancy(basically makes an exact copy of the other drive) If one drive should fail, your data is not lost.

 

[EeyoreX]

You can Ghost to CD or DVD as well. Of course, depending on the amount of data you have this could be prohibative at best. Or you can get a third hard drive and use that, as was mentioned. You can also simply back up any important data and jsut reinstall everything else from scratch.

\Dan