re: advice on removing raid configuration

[dxpaap]

I just got a new Dell desktop, with two 160gb drives configured as raid mirroring (XP not Vista).

Although I understand the value of mirroring, this is a system for my kid where amount of space is more important then saving critical data. He rather have 320gb of storage.

All I have on the system is what came with it (minus some of the bloatware), except for the OS updates.

I went into setup to remove the raid config, it told me I'd lose all data on that drive, evidently I can remove by drive?

Anyway, I don't want to blow my OS away, so do I need to just reove raid from the 2nd drive or both?

Or can I keep raid and just remove the mirroring capability? (not sure what value that would provide).

Thanks for any guidance - trying to get this thing useful for school next week

dave

PS if this is the wrong forum please advise as to which one I should repost.

 

[Nothinman]

He rather have 320gb of storage.

When one dies and he loses 320G worth of games he'll wish he had known better.

Frankly since you don't have anything installed yet I'd just break the mirror and reinstall the whole thing on one drive. It's the safer operation and you have a better chance of not running into any odd quirks with whatever fakeraid you're using.

 

[dxpaap]

Actually I was wondering if I could simply remove the 2nd 160gb drive from the raid configuration, leaving the first 160mb drive alone.

Would this give me the 2nd 160gb avaible for use (as a drive D ?

Also wondering if I'd run into issues with the first drive still being configured as a raid - mirror, but with only one drive?

I'm guessing the OS and everything is installed on the first drive, and the bios has the raid software to mirror everything to the 2nd drive? So reconfig the 2nd drive woun't make the 1st drive unstable ?????

thanks

dave

 

[Nothinman]

It'll likely run in degraded mode just fine, but that really depends on how the fakeraid card's drivers work.

 

[dxpaap]

thanks for the info, seems this is going to be more complicated then I would like. You've used the term "fakeraid", not sure if I understand what your saying - this Dell XPS uses the Intel raid chipset and drivers. I believe this is a real implementation.

anyway, went to Dell tech support and they said they don't provide tech support on reconfiguring raid that come with thier systems (wouldn't even tell me if they had online users manuals).

I did find some documentation that explained how to migrate a "raid 1" mirror (two drive) configuration to a Raid 5 stripping configuration, but I would have to add a third drive.

Athough, could not find any documentation on how to just turn off raid and use the two drives without raid (I gues that's what you meant by "degrade mode".

Guess Icould just try turning off the raid on the 2nd drive and see what happens - but hate to muck with a brand new system (mainly because I don't have a free 12 hours over the next week to play around configuring a system)!

thanks

 

[Nothinman]

thanks for the info, seems this is going to be more complicated then I would like. You've used the term "fakeraid", not sure if I understand what your saying - this Dell XPS uses the Intel raid chipset and drivers. I believe this is a real implementation.

I highly doubt it, virtually all onboard RAID controllers are just normal ATA controllers with a bit of magic to allow them to boot from RAID0 with the real work being done in a driver in the OS. I bet that if you boot a Linux LiveCD it'll show you two separate drives instead of your array.

Athough, could not find any documentation on how to just turn off raid and use the two drives without raid (I gues that's what you meant by "degrade mode".

No, an array is degraded when one or more drives isn't available. If you pull 1 drive out of a mirror then the array is still running but 1 drive, i.e. degraded. Setting up both drives as JBOD or single drives is what you want.

Guess Icould just try turning off the raid on the 2nd drive and see what happens - but hate to muck with a brand new system (mainly because I don't have a free 12 hours over the next week to play around configuring a system)!

Breaking the array and reinstalling Windows, not from their restore disc obviously, shouldn't take 12hrs. Well it is Windows so it'll take awhile, but 12hrs seems pretty long.

 

[RebateMonger]

If you don't already have Dell System Restore CDs, you should call or message Dell and ask for them. It's MUCH easier to get them while you are under warranty. And they should be free.

Restoring a Dell system from the on-disk recovery partition or from Dell Recovery CDs is quite fast. You can run the bulk of the required patches overnight.

Originally posted by: dxpaap
anyway, went to Dell tech support and they said they don't provide tech support on reconfiguring raid that come with thier systems (wouldn't even tell me if they had online users manuals).

You never mentioned your Dell's model number, so it's tough to help much with specific guidelines.