Prior to purchasing question

[Ayman Altounji]

I currently have two SCSI 9.1GB drives software mirrored by the NT OS running off the integrated SCSI controller of my Proliant 3000 (6/300 E39bios model). I'd like to break the mirror, install a Smart Array 431, and be able to boot from the "bootable" drive (the mirror drive would be out of the machine at the time). Is this possible? Could I then utilize the old mirror drive and a third 9.1GB drive to migrate to RAID 5 without losing data?

The objective here is to rid myself of software mirroring and move to Smart Array 431 RAID 5 with three 9.1GB drives WITHOUT having to reinstall NT server or lose data.

Thanks,
Joe Gonko
IT Manager

[Ayman Altounji]

Sorry. A reinstall of the OS, programs and data must be done to convert the mirror to a logical array volume. A compete backup of the system must be done before you install the array controller. Since the array controller stripes all data bits, not bytes, across all heads on all the drives in the array volume, you must a complete write all data to the drives for the array volume to be created.