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Raid zero 0

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by jessegonzalez

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I have a small server, with a raid zero array. 2 20 gig drives. Can I remove one drive insetall a larger drive say 80 gig, then rebuild the array. then remove the 20 and install a second 80 and rebuild again. Does anyone no if this is a workable procedure? What I mean by workable is will I be able to then restart the server and go on as usual. Any answers would be reatly appreciated.

4 replies

by lordinfidel

First backgrounder on why you cant'/shouldn't do this.

When you use raid, you do not *_ever_* want to mix and match drives.

This is because all drives are not made the system. The sector blocks can be different as well as access times. Whichcan affect the way data is written to the drives.

So what you want to do here is to buy 2 Identical 80 gig drives. (same brand and model)

Get Norton's Ghost. Put the 80 gig drive into the system (not as part of the mirror, keep the mirror intact.

Ghost the contents of the 20 gig drive to the 80 gig drive. Then replace the 20 gig drives with the 80 gigs and recreate the mirror.

If for some reason your controller must delete the drives before creating the new mirror. You still have the 20 gig drives with the original data. Simply use ghost again but this time use the 20 gig drive in the non-mirrored role and clone it to the 80 gig drive mirror set.

by that geeky guy

I have used ghost for a long time, but in general I agree with the rest of lord's reply in a raid system the drives should/ be the same other wise how can the software make sense of the differnt drive geometries. Lord probably has used the more recent versions of ghost than I have. I suggest bit the bullet back up ALL of your data and start from scratch. Doing so will probably be less frustrating and faster than mucking about breaking the mirror set rebuilding it then repeating the process for the second 80g drive.

by lordinfidel

I've used ghost 7 and 2000.

It seems like a lot of work, but it's really not. Especially if you consider the amount of time that it would take to rebuild the machine from scratch. (SP, HF's, Programs, Permissions, etc).

Actually, I cheat a little with ghosting. I will take a 3rd drive (same as the other 2 in the mirror set), pull the second drive in the set and plop in the 3rd. Most controllers will automatically rebuild the mirror, and voila' you have a working ghosted copy of your files.

This only works though for drives that are the same. And you can only pull the secondary, not the primary.

by that geeky guy

I ment to type "I have NOT used ghost fro a long time"

I guess it all depends on Jessi's comfort level for the upgrade process as in most areas there is often more than one way to do the task.

Cheers

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