How come I didn't have to format this array?

[MichaelD]

I thought this question deserved it's own thread.

Last night, I created a RAID 0 array with two drives. In all the exitement I forgot to format the drive. Completely slipped my mind. After creating the array, I used Norton Ghost, thru DOS to copy my old HD to the array. Made the array my boot device and voila; it works just dandy. Very good performance as well. Norton diagnostics shows the new drive to be FAT32, to boot!

Anyone want to educate me or offer possibilities? There's a good chance I'll be re-creating the array tonight with a different stripe size, and i was wondering if I should format the array, or just ghost right over it.

 

[bigbootydaddy]

i want to know this too. ghost rules!

 

[NelsonMuntz]

I believe tha ghost is making a full direct image copy onto the new drive, so it is either formatting it at the beginning automatically or just copying the image to the new drive so whatever the original was (FAT32) the new one will be.

 

[bacillus]

I think NelsonMuntz has hit the nail on the head!
the same thing occurs when you copy hdd to hdd using drive copy ie no formatting needed!

 

[MichaelD]

Nelson, your are 'da man wit 'da plan! So, if I decided to re-ghost, should I format the array thru C Format/z64 for a 64kb stripe, or just tell the Highpoint bios to use a 64kb stripe, reboot and ghost again? Thanks.

 

[Ben]

Norton copies the entire partition. I doubt you would even have to partition the drive after you define the array if your going to Ghost it.

Just like if you had any information on the drive before you ran Norton, Norton would destroy that information in favor of the back-up.

 

[Ben]

<< should I format the array thru C Format/z64 for a 64kb stripe, or just tell the Highpoint bios to use a 64kb stripe >>


I think your mixing stipe size and cluster size together and they are actually two different things.

You should be able to set your stripe size in the BIOS of the RAID controller. You will probably seen an improvement with a 64Kb stripe size.

The cluster size is done during formatting like you pointed out. I have a feeling that your stuck with whatever cluster size you had when you made your Ghost image. Some programs like Partition magic can change your cluster size. Personally I wouldn't worry to much about this. I tried different cluster sizes on a test drive and I got only minor differences in performance. The default size that Windows uses performed at the top, if not the best (there's a reason why they use it).

I would definately change your stripe size to 64Kb though. I saw a big improvement there.

 

[NelsonMuntz]

I agree with Ben. The stripe size s/b changed in the BIOS for the RAID controller.

 

[MichaelD]

Thanks Gentlemen. 64k it is. Heeeere Ghostdisk, Ghostdisk, Ghostdisk. To top it all off, I'll run some NEW BENCHMARKS comparing 32kb stripe size w/64kb stripe size. EVERYONE loves BENCHMARKS!