migration Windows RAID 0 migration

[jarik]

Hello,

 

I'm currently running a small-ish server as home storage (mostly video format) and I'm trying to expand it. I've recently obtained a workstation board which has like 12 sata ports, exactly what I need to expand my storage. This build is very budget and it's containing about 4 drives with total capacity of about 16 terabytes. I wasn't looking for any redundancy so the server is running windows raid 0. Right now, I'm trying to move those 4 drives with around 10 terabytes (half the capacity) filled to a different windows system (different motherboard, different system disk, different RAM, basically a whole different system). The RAID 0 configuration is ONLY DATA, no windows install (that is on a different disk). What I really need help with are actually two things if anyone could help me.

-How will the RAID 0 which was configured in windows disk management (software raid) behave if I just take out all the drives and connect them to a different system? I assume since the new windows install won't know the raid at all it's not gonna work. Is there a correct way to migrate software raid? Also I will be expanding it with another 2 drives, again.. I know atleast RAID 1 or even RAID 5 would be a better option but the drivers are all different sizes and I don't really know how to make use of that.

-On the new board which is asus z10pe-d8 ws there are like 10 SATA ports and 4 more "smaller" sata ports. They look similar but they're.. well.. smaller in width. What are those used for? How can I make use of them? Is there some kind of adapter?

 

I sincerely thank to anyone who even reads this, I know it's very basic but I haven't had any luck finding this kind of information anywhere. 

 

Thanks again.

[Needfuldoer]

As long as all the member drives are present, the new Windows install should pick the stripe right up.

 

If you had set up a hardware RAID, you would have to either cross your fingers and try importing it as a foreign config, or move your drive controller along with its drives.

 

The smaller connectors are "SATA Express", which supports SATA and NVME drives. I believe you just need cables with the SATA Express connector on one end and the regular SATA connector on the other.

 

If you want to combine drives with mixed capacity with some amount of parity, I think your only options are solutions like Unraid. That would require one drive that's larger than the others as a dedicated parity drive.

[Electronics Wizardy]

You can also use storage spaces on windows. That way you can have a pool of mixed sizes drives, with multiple raid level on one pool of drives.

 

3 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

 

If you want to combine drives with mixed capacity with some amount of parity, I think your only options are solutions like Unraid. That would require one drive that's larger than the others as a dedicated parity drive.

You can also do this config on windows with snapraid + drivepool.

[jarik]

4 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

As long as all the member drives are present, the new Windows install should pick the stripe right up.

 

If you had set up a hardware RAID, you would have to either cross your fingers and try importing it as a foreign config, or move your drive controller along with its drives.

 

The smaller connectors are "SATA Express", which supports SATA and NVME drives. I believe you just need cables with the SATA Express connector on one end and the regular SATA connector on the other.

 

If you want to combine drives with mixed capacity with some amount of parity, I think your only options are solutions like Unraid. That would require one drive that's larger than the others as a dedicated parity drive.

Thank you so much for all this information. I assumed that the software raid is somehow recognized by the windows install by itself, that's why I was worried. Thanks a lot again, I really appreciate this a lot. Consider this solved.

[jarik]

Hi again,

 

So I tried doing exactly as you wrote, I tried just re-seating the whole windows 10 stripe, hoping that the new windows will recognize it.. The stripe was made of 5 drives (16 terabytes). New windows for some reason only recognized 3 out of 5 drives even though the remaining two drives were obviously occupied by data. When I tried to "Import Foreign Data" in the windows disk management, All I received was that the 3 disks were made into dynamic BUT instead of "foreign" it has "failed" written under it. Basically the import has failed, probably because it tried to import 3 out of 5 disks since it didn't find anymore. How should I proceed? Is there a way to save my data which is stored on the 5 disks?

[jarik]

Hello everyone!

 

I'm having an issue while trying to migrade my Windows RAID 0 (striped) volume software raid to a whole different system (different system disk, different motherboard, different ram, different GPU, basically whole new system). I was told that the new windows should pick the stripe right up but that was not the case with my migration. As soon as I installed the new windows and connected ALL the drives which container the RAID 0, I encountered a "foreign drive" error on some driver. The former RAID 0 configuration was made out of 5 DRIVES, being 16 terabytes all together. What the new windows discovered was ONLY 3 out of 5 disks. The two non-discovered disks were visible, I could do stuff with them like format them but they were not acting as part of the old striped volume. After I tried to import foreign drive config (inside windows disk manager on 3 out of 5 disks) all I've gotten was instead of "foreign" there was "failed" under the dynamic drive import (see included image). Is there a way to save the data (5 drives total, used 10.5tb out of 16tb total)? Besides the importing foreign config in windows disk management I haven't done anything else. I've attached a screenshot of all the driver which were present when it worked on the old system EXCEPT the 120gb system drive which I only added and installed the windows on, after installation of windows I've addes the importatnt 5 drives hoping the new windows will pick them up as striped volume asap.

 

Thanks very much to anyone who even reads this, I'd really appreciate the help.

[Electronics Wizardy]

How important is this data? If its important, send it off to data recovery.

 

But if you wanna diy,  can you test thiese disks on the old system again? 

 

What 5 disks? The screenshot shows 6, and its weird there not all the size like you would normlly want for a raid 0.

[Kilrah]

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