Boo said:
Hi,
I'm hoping to start a new system build next week and intend to fit
multiple Seagate 500 GB sata drives in a Raid5 array. The raid
controller is the Intel IC9R chip (Gigabyte mobo) and I want to know
whether it is possible to start with 3 drives and later upgrade the disk
space by adding hard disks and non-destructively rebuilding the array so
as to retain the existing data spread across the nre bigger array ? Or
is this completely impossible ?
Thanks,
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/cs-020674.htm
It almost suggests you'd start with a 3 drive RAID0 and
migrate to a 4 drive RAID5. At least in terms of number of
drives in source and destination arrays. (I presume anything
not in the above table, is not possible or is not supported.)
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/cs-021520.htm
The second article is telling you, that certain migrations will
make more space available, but the volume size in Windows
is preserved during the migration. Something like
Partition Magic would be needed to change the volume size
after the migration was completed.
Going from 3 drive RAID0 to 4 drive RAID5, should still
give you 1500GB when using 500GB drives. So there won't be
a change in the physical volume size.
RAID5 is not a replacement for a backup strategy. You still
need backups, if the data is valuable to you. And in that
sense, migration is unnecessary, if your backup and restore
capability actually works. (Why do you need backups ? Say
the 12V rail on the power supply suddenly produces 15V, burning
all four drives in the RAID5 array. All your data is gone
instantly. That is when your off-machine backup comes into
play.)
I would suggest avoiding this step entirely. I would go
for the 4 drive RAID5 immediately if possible. I don't see
much point going through the additional step, especially as
the RAID0 seems like a bad idea.
The other alternative, is you could install one drive, F6 install
the RAID driver (makes the system "RAID ready"), and delay moving
all your data over, until the single boot drive is migrated to 4 drive
RAID5. According to the first link, that migration is
supported (5th line in table). You still need some way to connect
the original information source (where ever the 1500GB of data
is stored).
The Matrix Storage manual is here.
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/cs-020670.htm
Paul
