dynamic disk or partition magic?

[Cr0nJ0b]

Here's my situation. I have a RAID 0 set with 2 drives on an nForce4 motherboard. I plan to morph the RAID set to a 3 drive set, which will give me another 160GB. But that won't be usable to my XP Pro system...My current boot volume is setup as a basic disk. I'm wondering if I should change it to a dynamic disk and grow it...or just get partition magic and use that for the volume management.

any thoughts?

 

[Smilin]

although you can change it to a dynamic disk I don't believe you'll be able to span over into the new space (not with a boot drive). Generally I recommend staying away from dynamic disks unless you truly need one of the features they offer. Once the partition info gets shoved off to the LDM database the best a human can really do is edit the database headers. Recovery after some sort of problem (like partition havok failing) becomes really difficult once the partition table falls out of date.

If it is not your boot drive you can use diskpart extend to utilize the new space (basic or dynamic).

The canned answer is: backup/image then repartition then restore/reimage.

I would just hexedit the disk by hand to do the expansion but that's not kung-fu that most people have. I would definately stay away from partition havok though. I've cleaned up after that program on other peoples machines way too many times for me to trust it.

 

[networkman]

Yes, I'm sure you're keen to get another 160gig of space and perhaps a little extra speed with the Raid 0 setup, but you also need to realize that you're increasing your potential for failure. With Raid 0 on your setup now, either of the two drives going bad means ALL your data is hosed; adding another drive means that much MORE potential for getting into trouble. Make sure you've got a good backup solution!

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

thanks for the advice, and yes, backup is a serious consideration. I generally keep the important stuff on separate drives.

As to the extent question...it is a boot partition...so would Partition magic allow the extent to happen without a backup restore?

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Cr0nJ0b
thanks for the advice, and yes, backup is a serious consideration. I generally keep the important stuff on separate drives.

As to the extent question...it is a boot partition...so would Partition magic allow the extent to happen without a backup restore?

Hehe sure it will let you extend the boot partition without doing a backup/restore. Of course if it fails...you didn't backup so you can't restore.

 

[Madwand1]

Partition Magic is not being updated as far as I see, and has some outstanding issues. I'd suggest getting Acronis instead if you're getting something new.