Creating RAID 0+1 w/ existing system drives

[Seth Horila]

We have a Proliant ML370 G3, running windows 2000 and has a 5302/128 RAID Controller. The system drives are currently configured in a two bay hot swap cage that is connected to the onboard adaptec160 controller. The drives are mirrored using windows mirroring. I would like to connect these drives up to the free port 1 on the 5302 controller without losing the data. Can I create a RAID 0+1 mirror on the 5302 controller and have it copy the existing data from disk 0 to disk 1? Or do i have to wipe both drives, create the raid 0+1, then reload the OS on the logical drive in order to create it?

[Marek Nelec]

You will have to make backup of the data before connecting these drives to SA-5302 controller. Smart Array controller stores array configuration meta-data on drives in the array, so when you configure an array, data will be lost, and you will get empty logical drive.

[kcpant]

Hi,

Add to the above reply, I think you want to create RAID 1 (mirrored set on two disks), not 0+1 (mirrored set of striped sets). You may copy whole data from your existing disks to a spare HDD, make RAID1 set of the two disks, and then restore data from that spare HDD.