Upgrade to RAID - How, Exactly?

[fatboyslim]

Okay, I'm hoping that you all will have some tolerance for a basic question.

I'm thinking seriously about upgrading to a RAID setup, after years of IDE paranoia. Don't know if I'll go SCSI or IDE, still counting the votes. I'm looking for a combination of performance and security, so I guess that's my reasoning...but the thing is, how do I best migrate all my data/apps onto the new array? We'll assume for the moment that I'm too lazy or too overwhelmed by the possibility of reinstalling the OS (W2k) and all the apps...

Call me crazy (go ahead), but can I simply Ghost my original data onto, say, a brand-spanking new RAID 0+1 array? I'm calling myself crazy here, too.

What about leaving the old drive on the IDE chain and copying everything over to the array? No dice, or what?


Thanks for your patience and your help.


-joe

 

[mrman3k]

I would recommend waiting for Serial ATA (SATA) to come out and then get an SATA controller card and hard drive, you will have much better performance and it should be out by fall/winter time

 

[jdogg707]

Actually you could ghost your old data onto the new drives, it shouldn't be that difficult since they are recognized as one drive. If you want to wait for SATA then go for it, but the most economical solution at the moment is IDE RAID, I wouldn't waste the money on SCSI because if you're gonna put that much $$$ into it, wait for SATA. What I would reccomend is making CD-R backups from Ghost of your old HD and then installing the new RAID setup and installing everything from the CD's. I've done it before in RAID 0 and it works very well. You shouldn't have any problems doing this either. Hope that helps...

 

[fatboyslim]

Thanks for the info - I'm looking into SATA, too, just for my own entertainment.

Concerning your post, jdogg - what are the issues, if any, with making the resulting GHOSTed array bootable? I mean, it has to be, obviously...is this an automatic function of the data on the array, or is it more of a BIOS question?

Probably more of a newbie question, I would wager.


-j.

 

[LordAccord]

Especially If you are running win2k or xp, dont expect a ghosted HDD to boot on a RAID array... you will BSOD because you switched mass storage controllers. Any time your boot drive changes mass storage controllers, whether its a single drive from and intel board to a via board, or a single IDE controller to a RAID controller, you are going to have issues.... I would backup the vital data and give it a fresh format on the RAID array, thats probably the only way to get it to work well anyhow.

you can plug in your old drive after you have installed an OS on the array (so it wont detect the OS on the old drive when you format) and then copy files over... all RAID does it make multiple hard drives act like one big drive, your system will still recognize all of your other drives.

LoRdAccord

 

[fatboyslim]

Hmm. I AM running w2k, so there's a good piece of advice. I've also come across the issue of BSODs from changing drive controllers - I'm also looking into a mobo change (but that's another thread, of course).

What about w2k's ability to do a "repair" installation: swap mobo/install fresh RAID array, ghost onto array, boot from w2k CD, "repair current installation." Anybody try this magic before?


-j

 

[jonmullen]

Assuming that you have the money to get get all new HD's. This is really better since RAId likes identical drives. Get partition magic 7 for w2k, make the rescue. Then put that HD into you new system and boot to your old drive. Then in Partition Magic, select you old HD's partition and tell it to copy that partition to you new arrary and resize to match drive size. If it says any thing about file format say NTFS and if it asks about logical or primary say primary. It might give you a warrning about having 2 primarty active partitions, but this only matters for windows 9x. The say apply changes. It will restart and more all your data (This could take a bit if you have alot of data). Then go into partition magic and make sure your new partition is not hidden. If it is unhide it. Then go into PQBoot and set it to boot to your RAId array. Apply changes and restart. Then go into the BIOS and set it to boot the the RAID arrary in the boot order. One thing that you will need to do is make sure you have the driver disk for the Raid arrary. You can get if from who ever makes you controller be it promise, 3ware or High Point. If it is build into the mb go to the mb makes web site. Just make sure you have a disk with the drives. Good luck. As far as the Fixing boot records go it does work. Just boot from the cd or disk and say fix boot. If that does not work then use fixmbr to write a new boot record. Some times that is the only thing that will help.

 

[fatboyslim]

Hey, that sounds like it could do the trick. Either that, or simply keep me busy for a few hours... I'll try it; figure no harm as long as I back everything up first.

Thanks.


-j

 

[LordAccord]

let us know

 

[joohang]

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