Possible to partition raid 0 drives?

[Fadey]

If got 2 WD 200gb drives in raid 0 which pick up as a single drive when i load into xp. Im wondering if i used partition magic is it possible to create a 20gb set up on the side i can use to install vista on and have a look at it.

 

[corkyg]

Yes it is possible with Symantec P/M 8.0.

 

[essasin]

I wouldn't raid my operating system. If the raid goes down eveything goes down.

 

[Fadey]

I didnt have a choice my pc came set up in raid 0 and i didnt know what it was at the time 😛.

 

[Fadey]

So PartitionMagic 8 will allow me to Partition my raid set up even tho its stripped over 2 drives?

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Fadey
So PartitionMagic 8 will allow me to Partition my raid set up even tho its stripped over 2 drives?

I don't know - I was looking at a single RAID 0 SATA drive. RAID 0 in that case is only because the mobo SATA port requires it. I would never use RAID 0 for 2 drives. I have a second SATA drive coming today, and it will be put in a RAID 1 with the existing SATA, currently RAID 0.

I'll let you know how PM treats that situation. Personally, I would never use striping. It is too risky.

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: corkyg

Originally posted by: Fadey
So PartitionMagic 8 will allow me to Partition my raid set up even tho its stripped over 2 drives?

I don't know - I was looking at a single RAID 0 SATA drive. RAID 0 in that case is only because the mobo SATA port requires it. I would never use RAID 0 for 2 drives. I have a second SATA drive coming today, and it will be put in a RAID 1 with the existing SATA, currently RAID 0.

I'll let you know how PM treats that situation. Personally, I would never use striping. It is too risky.

😕

So the SATA port you were using actually required raid 0? Also what do you mean by a single RAID 0 drive? Raid 0 I thought required 2 drives...

To move from Raid 0 to Raid 1 won't you have to destroy the raid array you supposedly have now?

 

[Fadey]

Well like i said it came like this when i ordered it =(. So does any1 know if its possible to partition a striped raid 0?

 

[Tarrant64]

Most likely, it's recognized as one drive in Windows so using something like Symantec or Partition Magic should work just fine.

Just hope that...Vista doesn't screw up your boot options(something about it installing it's own boot menu and if you even upgrade you can''t go back BS)...

 

[Fadey]

Yeah u cant go back thats why i wanna make a 20gb side drize to test it on so it doesnt mess with my xp.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Tarrant64
So the SATA port you were using actually required raid 0? Also what do you mean by a single RAID 0 drive? Raid 0 I thought required 2 drives... To move from Raid 0 to Raid 1 won't you have to destroy the raid array you supposedly have now?

I can feel your confusion. But, the Asus P4PE mobo has two SATA ports. The BIOS requjires that they be raided. This is acknowledged by Asus ontheir web site. So, the only way you can run a single SATA drive is to put it in a RAID 0 array.

As a RAID 0 single drive, it is no different than a PATA drive in terms of what one can do with it. It can be copied, moved , partitioned, etc., etc.

I want to have a backup drive to that SATA drive - it is my data drive. So, I had two choices. Add another SATA drive and put it in a RAID 1 array, which would simply let it be mirrored.

The other choice was to disable the on board SATA ports and RAID driver (Promise Fastrak) and put in a SATA controller PCI board that would allow the use of SATA drives w/o RAID anything.

Changing the RAID 0 array does nothing to the data on the disk - it simply allows a RAID 1 array as long as there are two or more drives involved.

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: corkyg

Originally posted by: Tarrant64
So the SATA port you were using actually required raid 0? Also what do you mean by a single RAID 0 drive? Raid 0 I thought required 2 drives... To move from Raid 0 to Raid 1 won't you have to destroy the raid array you supposedly have now?

I can feel your confusion. But, the Asus P4PE mobo has two SATA ports. The BIOS requjires that they be raided. This is acknowledged by Asus ontheir web site. So, the only way you can run a single SATA drive is to put it in a RAID 0 array.

As a RAID 0 single drive, it is no different than a PATA drive in terms of what one can do with it. It can be copied, moved , partitioned, etc., etc.

I want to have a backup drive to that SATA drive - it is my data drive. So, I had two choices. Add another SATA drive and put it in a RAID 1 array, which would simply let it be mirrored.

The other choice was to disable the on board SATA ports and RAID driver (Promise Fastrak) and put in a SATA controller PCI board that would allow the use of SATA drives w/o RAID anything.

Changing the RAID 0 array does nothing to the data on the disk - it simply allows a RAID 1 array as long as there are two or more drives involved.

Oh, well why didn't you just say that? 😉

Thanks, makes more sense now.

 

[Fadey]

bump...

 

[Hyperlite]

Originally posted by: Tarrant64

Originally posted by: corkyg

Originally posted by: Tarrant64
So the SATA port you were using actually required raid 0? Also what do you mean by a single RAID 0 drive? Raid 0 I thought required 2 drives... To move from Raid 0 to Raid 1 won't you have to destroy the raid array you supposedly have now?

I can feel your confusion. But, the Asus P4PE mobo has two SATA ports. The BIOS requjires that they be raided. This is acknowledged by Asus ontheir web site. So, the only way you can run a single SATA drive is to put it in a RAID 0 array.

As a RAID 0 single drive, it is no different than a PATA drive in terms of what one can do with it. It can be copied, moved , partitioned, etc., etc.

I want to have a backup drive to that SATA drive - it is my data drive. So, I had two choices. Add another SATA drive and put it in a RAID 1 array, which would simply let it be mirrored.

The other choice was to disable the on board SATA ports and RAID driver (Promise Fastrak) and put in a SATA controller PCI board that would allow the use of SATA drives w/o RAID anything.

Changing the RAID 0 array does nothing to the data on the disk - it simply allows a RAID 1 array as long as there are two or more drives involved.

Oh, well why didn't you just say that? 😉

Thanks, makes more sense now.

lol i was about to say the same thing

 

[Fadey]

Alright i think im just gotta put it on my other comp that has a pentium d 805 in it and parition the 160gig drive it has..

 

[corkyg]

Postscript for Tarrant64 . . .

The new SATA 120GB arrived, and everything worked perfectly. First, I cloned the single SATADATA drive on to a spare PATA drive as insurance.

Then I connected the new SATA drive, and entered the RAID BIOS settings (Promise Fastrak). The procedure was to first, remove ("destroy") the old RAID 0 setting, and then build a new RAID 1 array using both drives.

The Fastbuild Program jumped in and said it would have to image the first drive onto the new 2nd drive. I knew then we'd be OK. It proceeded to do that. It was a slow operation. Took 1 hour and 7 minutes.

When done, it was a reboot, and as far as Windows is concerned there was no change at all. The two drives are seen as one drive - same letter, same size.

I checked PartitionMagic and it had no problem, and would have created a partition in that drive. But, I'm not at all sure that it would be OK if they were striped in RAID 0.

Now I know how to restore a RAID 1 array should one of the drives fail. 🙂

With RAID 0 and two drives - forget it. I think Fadey has made the right choice.

Cheers!