Adding another hard disk and changing the raid array from raid 0 to raid 1

[Patrick Lynch]

I would like to know how to change the configuration of raid 0 to raid 1. I am working on a HP netserver LH6000. My original configuration was the a raid 0 on one physical disk and raid 5 on the other 3 physical disks. I now have another physical disk and want to add it to the raid 0 array and convert it to raid 1. I am running Win2000. The raid 0 array is partitioned into 3 partitions. The OS system files are on this partition.

The Netserver Management Controller Firmware Version is E.10.38

The HP NetRAID Express Tools Version is B.02.02

Any suggestions is appreciated.

[Paul R. Dittrich]

Since RAID 0 requires a minimum of two drives, I'm not clear on how your current setup works.
In any case, your RAID controller will almost certainly insist on re-initializing both of the drive(s) to change to RAID 1 which means you will lose the existing content.

You could try using the Micro$soft FTDISK to do software mirroring, which would preserve your existing data, but it's a big performance drag and we've stopped using it anywhere.

HTH,
Paul

[Theo Hill_1]

Not true there Paul. One disk RAID 0 is possible, and commonly used. It's just a striped disk. The safest way to do this would be to create the new array, and restore from back up.

[Kurt Matthies · Accepted solution]

Patrick

Raid 1 is simply mirroring. You use the Disk Admin in Windows. The extra disk must be low-level formatted and have an unused partition at least the size of the partition you want to mirror.

Then you use the Control key to select both the original drive, and the unused partition, select Mirror from the FT menu, and windows does the rest.

Is this what you mean?

--kwgm

[Patrick Lynch]

Thanks Kurt just what I was looking for!

[Enes Dizdarevic]

Hi all!
Solution sugested in this diskussion works but this is not the most efficient way to use your resources. Using software mirroring is not as efficient as hardware RAID 1. Since you already have netraid controller and additional disk better way is to convert existing raid 0 to raid 1. This can be done online if you have installed netraid assistent (you can find it on navigator cd or load from hp site). In netraid assist you select your raid 0 logical disk and new ready disk and choose Logical drive -> change config -> raid level or add capacity in menu. In operating system you do not have to do anything.

[Paul R. Dittrich]

RAID 0 can not be implemented on a single drive since there is no "striping" of data.

Don't take my word for it, see this URL:
http://www.raid.com/04_01_00.html

[Theo Hill_1]

Enes is correct, why waste more processing power on a software mirror, when it can be done on a hardware level. I forgot that NetRaid Assistant has this ability.

Paul, the link has incorrect information. I see single disc RAID 0 arrays daily.