Swap drives for larger capacity on RAID 0 on GA-X58A-UD3R (Win 7-64)

[Mack1979]

I have 60GB SSDs on SATA3 setup in RAID 0 on my GA-X58A-UD3R motherboard. They've just about run out of space and I want to switch them for larger capacity drives. I know this is possible, but some ideas on instructions so I don't lose all my data in the process. I've been trying to use the Marvell RAID utility (MRU) in the hope it will be obvious but whenever I login it doesn't show anything, just "System".

[dmdilks]

You have to use a cloning program to do it right. I use a program called True Image.

What I'm reading here is you have another array setup to transfer all data to right?

If you are going from two drives to a single this might help you out too.

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/34367

[Mack1979]

Obviously not explained that right. I mean I want to keep my existing setup but just swap the hard drives for larger ones. I think it's supposed to just work. Swap one if the two drives in the raid and let it rebuild and then swap the second drive and let it rebuild again, but I suspect there's more to it.

[dmdilks]

You just can't build another raid with doing a little work when all is said and done. You have to have two raid-0 to do it.

But you can't boot your computer to both of them at the same time.

This guy had the same problem that you are having. Here is a link to how he did it.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f16/problem-raid-0-to-raid-0-clone-for-backup-293030.html

[Mack1979]

Bugger. Just realised the confusion. Its the typo - I have RAID 1 (mirroring), not striping.

I'm not trying to build a clone array and boot from it. The point of RAID 1 is that I can swap out a single disk in the event of failure and it will rebuild, right? I want to use a larger capacity disk for that. Then once rebuilt (with one old drive of 60GB and one new of say 240GB) to replace the second disk, so my existing array still exists, but the physical disks will have been swapped for 2x240GB drives in place of the 2x60GB drives.

I found these instructions earlier on which tell you how to do it with the Intel controller but this board has the Marvell one. It looks slightly more complicated than I expected, but perhaps the Marvell one is different

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-030751.htm

[dmdilks]

They say there is no difference between the two, but the Intel does run a little faster than the Marvell.

I only use the Marvell controller when I run out of Intel slots. I use to be a Raid junkie but with the new SSD.

You really don't need it any more. Yes people are going to say that with 2 - SSD it will run faster. 

I only use my SSD for the OS and a few programs. Everything else is on two 600-gb sata 3 raptors.

[Mack1979]

Likewise. I have the os and some programs on this raid array. I have a second one for my documents which is much larger (and then an 8TB dynamic disk across 4 drives for TV/movies). But I keep running out of space because of all the cached and temporary files which baby programs like crashplan and windows thumbnails and previous versions of edited pictures go to the c drive and cannot be moved.

[Mack1979]

So? Anyone got any advice on how to swap to larger capacity drives on RAID 1

MODS - can you change the title of the topic from RAID 0 to RAID 1?

[dmdilks]

I still don't understand what you are doing. It sound like you want to move everything off the small drives to the large drives.

Or are you saying that you can't move any thing from the small drives to the large ones. What to mean by the cached and temporary files.

I don't run the cache buffer on my SSD. Plus I don't run indexed on the SSD either. Here a tweak for SSD's You don't have to do everything too.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?63273-*-Windows-7-Ultimate-Tweaks-amp-Utilities-*

[Mack1979]

It's quite simple. I want to rebuild my array but using larger disks. I don't want to change my windows setup or add more drives, just rebuild the existing array. Ignoring the disk size change do I rebuild the array in windows or via the dos screen at boot up. Then secondly do I need to do anything to make windows recognise that the disks in the arrest are larger as those Intel instructions I linked to earlier said you have to make changes for windows to recognise the size of the array post rebuild.

[dmdilks]

You do it via the dos screen at boot up. Than in windows you have to go to disk management and setup the drives.