RAID 1 to RAID 5

psd99 · 24 Oct 2008 at 13:51

Okay this is a question about a scenario.

Say I had two drives in a RAID 1 set-up (mirrored) with an operating system like XP installed.

How can I get those 2 drives and another separate drive to become a RAID 5 set-up without reinstalling the OS?

Possible or not?

littlepuppy · 24 Oct 2008 at 13:58

ghost the raid 1, create the raid 5 then apply the image, you cannot ghost raid 5 though due to parity...

psd99 · 24 Oct 2008 at 14:02

Interesting it did cross my mind although I would use Acronis.

So RAID 5 to RAID 1 is a no no?!

brummie · 24 Oct 2008 at 14:05

Back up and restore to the new raid5

rpstewart · 24 Oct 2008 at 14:19

psd99 said:
How can I get those 2 drives and another separate drive to become a RAID 5 set-up without reinstalling the OS?

Possible or not?

Depends on the RAID controller, most will support online RAID level migration but only between certain levels. Intel Matrix RAID for example supports migration of 0 to 5, 1 to 5 and 10 to 5 (all by adding at least 1 disk). What won't happen however is a resize of any existing partitions, any increased capacity will appear as unallocated space.

littlepuppy said:
you cannot ghost raid 5 though due to parity...

Only the RAID controller knows the parity exists, Ghost/Acronis will treat it as a single volume and take the backup as normal.

bledd · 24 Oct 2008 at 14:24

rpstewart said:
Intel Matrix RAID for example supports migration of 0 to 5, 1 to 5 and 10 to 5 (all by adding at least 1 disk).

that's pretty impressive for an integrated controller, didn't know they could do that

however i'd still take an image

psd99 · 24 Oct 2008 at 17:43

Thanks that is very good to know about amazing how RAID works

I wonder how many people use RAID setups from on here.