Moving a RAID 1 Setup

davidst95 · November 11, 2014

Hi, I have 2x 4GB HHD in a dynamic raid in Windows. I would like to use the Intel Raid on the motherboard. I read that if you undo the Intel Raid the data is still on the harddrive. I was wondering what would happen if I wanted to have a new Intel Raid 1 in a new computer. Would I have to reformat both drives? Thanks.

David

Tedster · November 11, 2014

Please could you explain your question better?

With RAID 1, you have all of the data on 2 disks at once.

If you had a new raid on the integrated controller on an Intel board...why would you want a new RAID?

Couldn't you keep the old one? Am I not understanding or incorrect? Probably.

davidst95 · November 11, 2014

Please could you explain your question better?

With RAID 1, you have all of the data on 2 disks at once.

If you had a new raid on the integrated controller on an Intel board...why would you want a new RAID?

Couldn't you keep the old one? Am I not understanding or incorrect? Probably.

Thanks for the reply. I mean is it possible to move my RAID 1 drives to a new computer. Does Intel have an option to sync two disks. For example copy data from one disk to the other when setting up a RAID 0 on a new motherboard? Thanks.

DirkW · November 11, 2014

Thanks for the reply. I mean is it possible to move my RAID 1 drives to a new computer. Does Intel have an option to sync two disks. For example copy data from one disk to the other when setting up a RAID 0 on a new motherboard? Thanks.

Sounds like you were using software RAID before. I don't think you can move this over to hardware RAID ( e.g. with your intel chipset) without losing the data (during the creation of the hardware RAID array that is). Also moving from one computer (from RAID via Intel chipset) to another computer (to another RAID via Intel chipset) could work, but it's not guaranteed either.

IdeaStormer · November 11, 2014

@davidst95

Its doable. First this is assuming you can use the one drive in its current RAID 1 state but not in the pair/mirror, aka Degraded mode. If you can use the one drive in its current mode then you're good to go. You can test that by yanking on of those RAID 1 drives and seeing if you can view it all by its lonesome. If not then you reinsert it in to its RAID array where it will resync while you replan. If it works then all you have to do is save one of those drives away in a safe place. Then with the other drive you add it to a system that has an Intel SATA controller that's in RAID mode. Format the drive as you would in regular life. Then add/mount the drive you saved away and copy its data to the drive you just added to the hardware Intel RAID controller. Once that is done you then wipe the drive you had saved away and remove its formating. Now, make sure you have the Intel RST application installed before adding the drive to the hardware RAID. When you add it you can use the Intel RST app to create a live RAID 1 of the drives without losing the data.

You can always look up the info on the Intel site for the chipset you are using and the Intel RST software.