RAID mirror - upgrading the hard drives

[admin]

I currently have 2 80 GB drives in a mirrored config (MSI K7N2 Delta, nForce 2 MB). I want to upgrade the 2 disks to something bigger. What would be the easiest way to achive this (hopefully without having to re-install everything)?

[Chewy]

there are 4 delta versions of that mobo

assuming you have the platinum with sata raid?

[Chewy]

break the mirror and image over to a bigger single sata? from jbod mode

[admin]

It's the ILSR version, with SATA RAID. (to be honest, I don't even remember what model it was until I ran HWINFO).

Would it be possible to take out one of the old drives, replace with the new bigger drive, rebuild the mirrored array, then replace the remaining old drive with another new drive and rebuild again? (obviously the two new drives would be of the same brand/model, as I would be purchasing them together)

[Chewy]

wouldn't the new drives have to be initialized and formatted first?

also the raid would hose the boot option

[Chewy]

break the mirror, pull the mirrored drive

initialize and format the new bigger drive

then image over to the bigger drive

set that drive active with windows

switch the drives, boot to the new one

initialize and format it's new twin and then mirror

[admin]

Apparently this MB does not support JBOD (http://forums.pimprig.com/archive/t-25546.html), it certainly doesn't mention it in any of the manuals. It's listed as "K7N2 Delta-ILSR MSI Part No: MS-6570" here:

http://computerbuild.org/MSIAMDK7N.aspx

(not the Platinum one)

The instructions provided don't really say enough - all they say is that if you want to rebuild a mirror array (eg. faulty drive), just replace the old drive, boot into the RAID utility at start up and select the rebuild option - it doesn't mention formatting or anything like that, so I assume you won't need to?

I suppose if I treat the situation as replacing one faulty drive in the array, rebuild with a new drive. And then a couple of weeks/months later, the other drive dies, and I replace with another new drive. This should technically work, since the only difference is that I'm doing it all at once, as opposed to a few weeks/months apart?

[Chewy]

it will probably work that way but what about the larger size?

you could test by breaking the mirror and booting to the new larger drive

all those chipsets support single drives(jbod?) natively

[admin]

There is no JBOD option in the setup section, but perhaps I can simulate it by making 2 seperate RAID 0 arrays (the manual does say you can "create a striped array with only 1 drive", although is this still called a stripe?). It will hopefully take any drive that is not currently in an array and then allow you to create a 1 disk RAID 0 with it, and leave any existing arrays alone.

I'll most likely end up buying a new computer

[photo_angel2004]

When I upgraded to a larger Hard drive I moved all the saved data from on to the new bigger one and left the original alone and kept it as my C drive and went with a much larger G that way no worries on the configuration on the local C drive, which is still only and 80 gig HD but how big do you want you C drive to be when you think about it if your using you C drive for programs and moving everything else to the other bigger one. That way there was no re installing anything to the C drive.

[admin]

I'll most likely end up buying a new computer

(After losing all the data on my current one, of course)

[photo_angel2004]

(After losing all the data on my current one, of course)

That sucks, all that data to get back and start over, been there before though.


The good part is you get a new pc.

[Chewy]

that's where a cheapo pata drive comes in handy, I just unhook one of my dvd burners and transfer data to it