Procedure for Upgrading (Enlarging) mirrored drive

Soldato
Joined
2 Aug 2012
Posts
7,809
Hi,

I have a pair of 1TB HDD set as software mirror in win 8.1

They are getting a bit full. I am wanting to enlarge them.

Now, In a "sensible" world, I would simply replace one disk with a larger one, rebuild the array, replace the other, rebuild again and there we are job done!

But I do not imagine, for one nanosecond, that it is a sensible world!

I have googled the subject but seem to get a range of procedures (Mostly relating to win 2000! :confused: )

Given that this cant be a particularly uncommon procedure for people these days, I am surprised that there isn't actually a "Wizard" written into disk management to deal with it.

Can anybody point me to a definitive procedure for doing this?

Cheers
 
How are they RAIDed, what controller, where/how did you setup the RAID?
 
What you are looking for is called "Online Capacity Expansion" and is not a feature of RAID as implemented in software in Windows 8.1, with the exception of adding more disks to a JBOD array.

However, the fact that you are wanting to go small RAID-1 to large RAID-1 makes it easy.

Leave current array in place, make new array from new disks, copy data across or even use disk imaging software to move it before expanding the partition, remove old disks, reassign drive letter on new array to match old drive letter.
 
What you are looking for is called "Online Capacity Expansion" and is not a feature of RAID as implemented in software in Windows 8.1, with the exception of adding more disks to a JBOD array.

However, the fact that you are wanting to go small RAID-1 to large RAID-1 makes it easy.

Leave current array in place, make new array from new disks, copy data across or even use disk imaging software to move it before expanding the partition, remove old disks, reassign drive letter on new array to match old drive letter.

I had thought about that, Fortunately it is just a "Data" disk so this should present no problems.

I was just hoping there might be some sort of undocumented feature buried within Win8.1 disk management to deal with this, I would imagine, fairly common, problem.

Thanks for looking and replying.

:)
 
Is RAID1 the best option for you here?

If it's a data disk, I'd rather have a robocopy script that backs it up on a schedule or on demand.

This way you've got a backup in place in case you delete a file by accident.
 
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