Migrating RAID 10

PoLoMoTo · October 20, 2014

So I'm on X58 with an Asus P6X58-E Pro and have four two terabyte WD Red drives in raid 10 but I'm planning on upgrading to an Asus X99-Deluxe. The question is can I move the raid to the new motherboard? And if so how? Could I just plug the drives in and it will just pick them up or will I have to reformat them and rebuild the raid?

Hoppa · October 20, 2014

@PoLoMoTo

I'm not 100% sure, but it may be locked to your motherboards chipset.

What you can do, is enable RAID on your new PC and see if it detects the RAID array.

PoLoMoTo · October 20, 2014

So basically if it is compatible and the bios is set to raid it should just pick it up?

SuperSoph_WD · October 21, 2014

Hey there, @PoLoMoTo!

It really depends on what kind of RAID you have set up.

If you have a software-based RAID, then I think it's possible to transport between the arrays. For example, Windows will ask you to import them and they should be able to rebuild themselves.

However, if you are using a motherboard RAID controller, the new controller won't be able to see the RAID created by your old one. You might have a chance since both motherboards are the same brand, but you have to check if they have the same controller as well. If yes, you might be able to re-create the array and read the meta-data.

Another very brave thing to do is set up the new motherboard and controller with the same settings you used in your old array and hope that it will pick up your configuration.

But before attempting anything whatsoever, I'd advice you to backup your array somewhere else.

Whenever you are migrating, cloning or whatever kind of transporting data you should always do a back up, because the procedures are very delicate.

Good luck! Hope I helped!

SuperSoph_WD