Convert Raid 0 to Raid 0+1

malcolm · 17 Feb 2006 at 08:13

I have a Raid 0 array in a 'home server' with 2 160 Gbyte drives in Raid 0. Nice big store at the time, but now I'm becoming paranoid about security. So I'm going to invest in 2 more 160 Gbyte drives and re-configure to Raid 0+1.

Has anyone done this? Can I do it without deleting the array? In other words, will I have to reload the data from scratch? Not a problem if I have to, just curious really.

Mercutio · 17 Feb 2006 at 10:27

It should be a case of adding the 2 drives and telling your raid controller what you want doing with them. Generally this is how a raid 0+1 is setup - you install to a raid 0 then add the 2 drives that will act as mirror once system is up and running

smids · 17 Feb 2006 at 12:12

Mercutio said:
It should be a case of adding the 2 drives and telling your raid controller what you want doing with them. Generally this is how a raid 0+1 is setup - you install to a raid 0 then add the 2 drives that will act as mirror once system is up and running

Sometimes setting up a RAID1 isn't as simple and will require blank disks... I setup my RAID0+1 just the other day from scratch, I wish I had tested this before though (I needed it from scratch anyway, but could have easily tested, DARN!). Backup all the data first and give it a go. What controller do you have anyway? Let us know how you get on.

malcolm · 17 Feb 2006 at 21:28

Thanks for the replies.

My controller is a Sil 0680 UDMA133 PCI card. The system it lives in is an old Dell P3 based system, fast enough for the work it does, though it is scheduled for a refit!

Malcolm

malcolm · 22 Feb 2006 at 11:50

Well I got a new pair of 160's, pity I didn't read a bit more on this forum before I ordered a pair of Maxtor's! Once installed the only way to configure seemed to be to delete the existing Raid. I used the original pair as the 'Source' drives and the new ones as the 'destination', then the system did a re-boot.

First off the bios decided to change the boot order, so it was back into the bios to get it to boot from the 'C' drive (that's a 36 gig Seagate SCSI) and once into Windows there was no Raid drive. Disk management showed the volume, but it was unitialised so a format was needed. So there we have it, all the data has to be replaced.

Maybe it was because they were new and unformatted drives, maybe because they are from a different manufacturer, and actually show up as a different size to the original IBM drives in the controller bios. Still making a 305 Gbyte array though. I could have bought a pair of 300's and mirrored them, it would have been a bit more costly even with selling the two 160's on the bay, but I was not prepared to stretch that far.