Raid 0 and Shadowprotect image

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by sukarof, May 17, 2008.

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  1. sukarof

    sukarof Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 22, 2004
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    Location:
    Stockholm Sweden
    I have two identical 160GB SATA 2 hard drives that I want to use in a Raid 0 configuration.
    My question is:

    1. When I have set the Raid 0 up, can I restore a Shadowprotect image that was made from my old single disk to these two Raid 0 disks? (I suppose I have to use HIR)
    or do I have to reinstall windows from scratch?
    2. In the future if I decide to go back to a single disk, can I do the opposite? (use a SP image made in Raid 0 on a single disk)
    3. FDISR archive wouldnt be any problem to restore either way, right?
     
    sukarof, May 17, 2008
    #1
  2. lodore

    lodore Registered Member

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    Posts:
    9,065
    hello sukarof,
    first off unless your using a proper raid card i wouldnt reccomend using raid 0
    im guessing your using the raid card bulti on the the motherboard?
    if so i would strongly reccomend you dont. it is fake raid and uses drivers to provide the raid which uses your cpu.
    its better to get a single really fast hard drive such as a WD raptor or a 500gb-1TB drive as a boot drive. any special reason for wanting to use raid 0?
     
    lodore, May 17, 2008
    #2
  3. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 20, 2003
    Posts:
    20,590
    Hi sukarof

    Having just been through this from breaking a raid array to trouble shoot for a bad disk here is what I would recommend.

    1. Obviously image the system.
    2. Set up the raid array and do whatever you need to do in the bios.
    3. If you have a windows CD I'd reformat and do a clean install.
    4. Then restore the image. You might need HIR, only to load the raid drivers, if they aren't loaded in the image. If they are then you don't need HIR.

    5. When you restore the image, and select destination, I'd delete the volume, and then recreate the partition using either the size you want, or the whole disk

    As for going back. Slight modification.

    1. First you need to resize the partition down to the size of the single disk.
    2. Image the system.
    3. Break the array, and make all the bios changes.
    4. I'd reformat and do a windows install.
    5. Restore the image.

    I did the clean windows install, as breaking the array left the disks kinda funny as to format, and SP didn't quite know what to make of it. Formating and doing the windows install just set everything up right, and then SP restored perfectly.

    As to the merits of doing it. I've got three machines running raid 0 and they all are the mother board/driver variety. Problems, none really, measured thru put gain, is about 20% on my machines.

    Pete
     
    Peter2150, May 17, 2008
    #3
  4. sukarof

    sukarof Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 22, 2004
    Posts:
    1,887
    Location:
    Stockholm Sweden
    Thanks for your replies.

    Yes I was thinking of using the built in raid in my MB.
    I bought a new big hard drive (for a prize I couldn't resist) where I can store the stuff occupied in the two SATA 2 disks I had already. I just wanted to play with the RAID idea...why ? Well, not a important thing really, mostly for the same reason as dogs lick them selves between the legs - because they can :D and maybe learn new stuff. I´ll probably test the other RAID options too later on.

    Thanks Peter2150 for the walkthrough!
     
    sukarof, May 17, 2008
    #4
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