Software RAID : Moving the disks to and from PCs

FatRakoon · 2 May 2020 at 15:22

This is purely an "I wonder" question.

I got a Laptop.
It has Windows on the SSD and 2 x 2TB Hard Disks

I was thinking about having them as one 4TB with Windows' own Software RAID.

( Will it be any quicker? Maybe, maybe not )

But, of course I have to copy everythign off these disks, make the array, then copy everything back.

But to do that, I might need to do it over the Network or to a USB Drive and there is over 2TB of stuff so its not going to be quick.

Could I take those 2 drives... Add then to a Desktop PC, make the array, then copy the files back to the array and then once thats done, put the disks back into the Laptop?

I will obviously need to mount them properly of course, but will it be ok? Will it keep the data?

Is there anything that I can do that will ensure it will be ok?

I have got a couple of test drives, but before I go galavanting, I thought I would ask the experts.

( I am disabled and in a wheelchair and only have use of one arm, and so its not easy for me to go messing about anymore )

FatRakoon · 2 May 2020 at 16:50

Storage spaces?

Anything Like LVM in Linux?

Im not entirely sure about Software raid myself to be honest... I have used it before, and I have used STRIPED and SPANNED to join two drives together and that was fine when I reinstalled and it fixed the disk and I got my data back, when I redid them, but when moving them to another system...

Similarly,. when I moved my drives previously from one PC to another, they were setup with a real RAID CARD and I moved the drives to another PC, however, the Card also went over and so the drives and the data were kept safe.

But this is Windows own software RAID and so I am a bit iffy on it.

There is no vital data or anything kept on it, so if it goes belly up, its not a big deal, but I dont want to have to go through it all just to have it fail on me and have to put it all back.

FatRakoon · 2 May 2020 at 17:36

Ok, I will have a look, thanks.

FatRakoon · 2 May 2020 at 17:47

Ah "manage storage space" on the CLI and it comes up...

Looks promising... I will back up ONLY what I need then, on the Laptop and I will try to keep the stuff I need all on Drive 3, then mage the storage space on drive 2, move the stuff from drive 3 to Drive 2 and then try adding Drive 3 onto the Storage space??? - That will ( if it works ) allow me to then have the one storage space.

It does indeed seem to be similar to LVM in Linux ( Logical Volume Management ).

My Linux Laptop is the same as the Widnows one... SSD for root ( Linux ) and I did use one 2TB Drive for /home ( Docs and data ) and the second 2TB as just a /home/data that I used for things like my Steam folder and extra junk that I didnt have in /home... Then I found out how to do LVM and its much much better now... Bit horrid to start with but its much nicer once you get over the learning curve.

I guess windows will be no different.

Many thanks mate... I will give it a shot and see how it goes. It will at least allow me to do everything on the Laptop without having to transfer the drives about!

FatRakoon · 3 May 2020 at 20:10

I just thought I would update you on my findings with this storage spaces malarky...

I have indeed turned the two 2TB Drives into a single 4TB Drive. ( 3.7 really, but yeah, you know what I mean! )

Time. Its far to oearly to tell how I truly feel about it. One thing that I am kind of iffy about is partitions.

I know that partitioning a STRIPED RAID pair of drives is kind of weird, but you do get a small boost in performance.
I have found out that proper hardware RAID is really quick and software RAID does boost, but I also think that there is some overheads with software and so you lose some and gain some, but what you gain does make it a little bit quicker than normal.

I have NOT done any tests in the last few years, but some time ago when I did play about with comparing Soft/Hard Raids, I was using a couple of 80GB Drives to do various tests and I ran a few tests with various format types and various raid types and with Windows Software, plus also raid on the Motherboard and a RAID Card, and I found that Motherboard RAID is not really true RAID - What woke me up to that fact, was that I tried to RAID a pair of drives to install Linux and even when it was RAIDed, Linux could still see the two drives but windows saw just the array... I then looked into it to find out that Motherboard RAID is really just a hardware version of software? ( Well, sort of )

Anyway, Ill get on with the reply now...

Even with RAID, you can still partition the array.

So even when I had the two drives, I had a single partition on D: and the second drive was e: ( 1bout 1.4TB ) and F: ( About 300MB ) and if I had striped the two drives, I could still have

, E: and F: of about the same sizes, but Iwill have a small speed boost. With this Storage Spaces, Iam stuck with using only one Partition.

Thats a small issue that is niggling at me, but hey ho.

I could be wrong! - I might not have noticed that I can actually have various partitions?

I have had a bit of a weird thought earlier on too!

I have a whole load of various adapters and cards and all kinds of stupid things that I have bought, that let me get Compact Flash cards or SD Cards and so on into my Atari computers. I had a look in the box at the spare bits and they are mostly IDE but Ialso have a load of IDE to Sata adapters and so I had a look at the cards and I have the ability to connect 12 Compact flash cards to 12 SATA ports

Looking about I also have 5 SATA cards and so I can have aa hell of a lot more than 12 Sata devices.

So, I have my old Core2Duo Alienware PC doing nothing, and so I am going to install Windows 10 onto that, and then setup Drive D: to be purely made up from loads of Compact flash drives and hard disks and I am going to fill every SATA slot that I can with whatever the hell I can, just to have a giggle...

Then Iwill have a look to see if it will defrag? cos then it will have to defrag across multiple drives ... I have defragged a striped array but never a spanned one and never one of these storage devices.

My god I am an idiot ... Why do I waffle so much?

FatRakoon · 3 May 2020 at 20:36

I am already old and brain dead so yeah... in the same club.

I suppose Im just bored as hell... There is only so much you can do before even your favourite hobby becomes a chore in this lockdown.

I have recently been working on a couple of hackintoshes and during the failures, I took a working disk, to all of my other intel PCs and laptop and almost all of them were fully able to get to the desktop. The Laptops all failed with no keyboard and almost all of them failed with LAN and Audio but they all got o the dekstop, so that was nuts.

This was with Snow leopard though.
I got Mojave installed on the 6600k but the 2500k will only get as high as high Sierra however I have not yet managed that.

Again its mostly boredom because eve nthough the Mojave setup is rtunning flawlessly, I am trying to work out why the hell people bother with apple? I mean, I have a ton of games on STEAM and I have that on my Windows and Linux PCs and Laptops and so I chucked it onto the Hack too, and there is next to bugger all thats on there! - Mac has much poorer support than Linux does with Steam.

Then you have to consider the price of apple stuff... Why the hell do people bother with it?

Its like Harley Davidson motorbikes... I have dreamed of owning on since I was a child, and a few years ago I finally splashed out on one... It was by far, one of the most stupid things I have EVER done. It was slow, cumbersome unrealiable and the build quality was disgusting. I sold it off about a year ago and then teh wife used that money to redecorate the ensuite ( the cow ).

But I do miss it purely because of how other people looked at it... It was goargeous.

Thats the same with Apple computers... They look great and they cost a fortune, but they are utter drivvel.

Linux is free, faster and more reliable and is so customizeable that it can look almost exactly like a Mac if you are that way inclined!

FatRakoon · 4 May 2020 at 04:32

Oh, I dont know.
I have pushed Linux onto a lot of people, especially when Window 8 and 10 came out, the number of people who moaned about them, and so I would say that Linux is an option to think about.

The thing is, that most people dont have a clue as to how Widnows works never mind Linuxx and so they dont know whats under the hood and so they just need somethign that lets them do their emails and use the internert, and maybe do the occasional letter, and so 9 times out of 10 most people will be just as happy with Linux as they would with Windows, they just dont want to change what they have, but as I said, most of them dont know a thing about windows either!

The number of windows users that I have converted to Linux users, is quite incredible. I would not be lying if I said its got to be closing up on 45-50 I am sure, and sure,. some wanted to go back as they wanted some app or another to run and they couldf not get it running on Linux, and thats fine, but I also know that most have stuck with it and are happy as larry.

Especially as I show them the apps can be had from the software manager and in most cases they are perfectly happy with them.

Printers are not really an issue as almost all good printers are fully supported anyway, and you said about the Graphics cards, yeah, they are no longer any problems and have not been for quite some time now. My Main Linux PC has an ATI 380 and my main Linux Laptop is nVidia and that gives you the option of the builts in or the latest nVidia drivers and they both support full 3D / OpenGL and play games just fine.

Videos are handled with VLC or a few other choices, and Music by again, a number of choices that are all there ready to go.

Many people like the idea that there is a software manager that simply downloads almost anything they want in seconds.

And with a silly choice of desktops and interfaces, that are fully customizeable, they can have their system looking like anything they would wish for.

Ah, its all subjective though... I love Linux without a doubt, but Istill use Windows too! - Its hard to let go when Windows runs 100% of everything, no matter how much I can prop Linux up, Windows is still going to beat it.