Ghosting OS raid array

Nick1881

Nick1881

Nick1881

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I have my OS on 2 WD drives now and I have 2 sammy SSD's on the way.

What is the best way to do it?

Currently on my UD5 I'm using

Sata 0-1 - WD Intel raid 0 array (2 x 250Gb)
Sata 2-4 - 3 x 500Gb storage drives (not raid)
Sata 5 - DVD drive

So all 6 normal sata ports are in use.

There are 4 Gigabyte sata ports too but it seemed when I connected to these last time the drives weren't recognised, not sure why?

Any help or advice would be great.

Thanks
 
You'll have to enable the extra ports in BIOS, and the bootrom too if you want to boot from them (install the Windows RAID drivers after enabling). I would want to use the Intel ports for booting I think. Enable the ports and see if you can move a couple of storage drives onto them in non-RAID mode.
 
Does it matter what ports I use for the OS raid array?

If not I could disconnect 2 of my storage drives, put the ssd's on ports 2 & 3, create the raid array, ghost the OS from the old array and remove the old array then use ports 0 & 1 for the 2 storage drives I disconnected.
 
mr_x_plosion said:
Does it matter what ports I use for the OS raid array?

If not I could disconnect 2 of my storage drives, put the ssd's on ports 2 & 3, create the raid array, ghost the OS from the old array and remove the old array then use ports 0 & 1 for the 2 storage drives I disconnected.
Click to expand...

I don't think it makes much difference as you get to choose which drives in the BIOS screen, but it makes sense to use ports 0 and 1 if you can. I would get the spare ports working, move a storage drive onto those, create an image of your array on that, then drop the drives off ports 0&1 and replace with SSDs. Create new array and restore OS onto them. Don't destroy the existing array until you're sure the ghosted image works (so don't uninstall them - just unplug). You'll have to go back in later to uninstall the old array but it's safer this way.

Incicdentally, although the JMicron (Gigabyte) supports 4 SATA devices the interface is only 2 ports split 4-ways, so you'd have to be careful which ports you select if you want them to run at 3Gb/sec (it will only support 2 at that speed). Still useful for putting DVD drive on though and free-up the Intel ports for HDs.
 
I can't remember how much space I have on my storage drives and how big my OS is at the moment.

Could I make a partition on one of them if there is room (think there is) ghost the OS on then plug the ssd's in and ghost it back?

What software should I use? Last time I used Norton ghost.
 
You don't need a new partition, Ghost just creates ordinary files. No reason you can't do it the way you suggest. I use Ghost 12 and 14 myself.
 
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