Disk Management Question re converting to dynamic disks

[Ken Gardner]

I have two physical hard drives on my computer. Both are approximately 238
GB. I am using them as a RAID 0 array (i.e. striped). Both are basic disks
with a single primary partition on each drive.

Here is my question. Can I convert both drives to dynamic disks and then
combine them (so that I get one 465 GB dynamic drive) without disrupting the
performance gains from the RAID 0 array? If I do this, will I take a
performance hit on the HD?

TIA,
Ken

 

[Guest]

All in all, it's a bad deal! You'd not only lose the benefits of the RAID-0
performance, but you'd get a performance penalty from the spanned drive
overhead.

If those are the only 2 drives on your machine, you'd also have the problem
that dynamic drives which contain the system partition or the boot partition,
cannot be spanned.

 

[Ken Gardner]

All in all, it's a bad deal! You'd not only lose the benefits of the
RAID-0
performance, but you'd get a performance penalty from the spanned drive
overhead.

If those are the only 2 drives on your machine, you'd also have the
problem
that dynamic drives which contain the system partition or the boot
partition,
cannot be spanned.

It turns out that I cannot do it anyway. Disk Management simply doesn't
give me the option of converting to dynamic disks. I am virtually 100%
certain that this has to do with pre-existing RAID-0 array. I guess that I
can wipe both drives, undo the RAID thingie, reinstall everything, convert
the disks to dynamic....nah, I think my sock drawer needs much more urgent
attention.

Thanks
Ken

 

[Alexander Suhovey]

Ken,

I'm not sure I fully understand your situation and the thing that confuses
me most is this: Dynamic disks is basically software RAID technology so why
move to software RAID if you have hardware RAID already?..

And if you already have two 200 GB disks in RAID 0 configuration, operating
system should see it as a single 400 GB volume so I'm not sure what are you
talking about here.

 

[Ken Gardner]

Ken,

I'm not sure I fully understand your situation and the thing that confuses
me most is this: Dynamic disks is basically software RAID technology so
why move to software RAID if you have hardware RAID already?..

And if you already have two 200 GB disks in RAID 0 configuration,
operating system should see it as a single 400 GB volume so I'm not sure
what are you talking about here.

 

[Ken Gardner]

I'm not sure I fully understand your situation and the thing that confuses
me most is this: Dynamic disks is basically software RAID technology so
why move to software RAID if you have hardware RAID already?..

That's an excellent question. Here's the answer. When an Intel program
created the RAID 0 array, it did so in two partitions of 238 GB each (C
drive and D drive). I would like to know if I can change this so that the
system sees one C partition of 465 GB.

And if you already have two 200 GB disks in RAID 0 configuration,
operating system should see it as a single 400 GB volume so I'm not sure
what are you talking about here.

On Disk Manager, the two physical drives show up as Disk 0 with two
partitions. These are basic disks. Can you extend the partition of a basic
disk in Vista? If so, I might solve my problem by deleting the D partition
and then extending the C partition.

Ken
--

 

[Ken Gardner]

On Disk Manager, the two physical drives show up as Disk 0 with two
partitions. These are basic disks. Can you extend the partition of a
basic disk in Vista? If so, I might solve my problem by deleting the D
partition and then extending the C partition.

I just answered my own question. Yes I can! Vista is way cool.

Ken

 

[Alexander Suhovey]

Glad you solved it.

--
Alexander Suhovey

I just answered my own question. Yes I can! Vista is way cool.

Ken

 

[Ken Gardner]

Well, I have you to thank for it. . When you suggested that my setup was
a hardware version of dynamic disks so why mess with it, the solution
presented itself. It took me all of 3 minutes.

Ken