To RAID Or Not To RAID..

[Guest]

I currently have a 30Gb ATA100 disk with a boot manager (BootStar) and 4 partitions (3 primaries and an extended).
Just bought a second 30Gb disk for backup, but that's a no-go.
So I'm considering going IDE RAID..

Da question is now:
- would it be possible to implement IDE RAID -WITHOUT- reinstalling my 3 OS-ses ?
- do these IDE RAID controllers support RAID5 ?
Coz I need the safety but I don't like the performance drop that comes with the mirroring ..

Thanks for the replies!

 

[rbertino]

Unfortunately, changing to RAID will force you to have to reinstall everything.

As far as RAID 5 goes, I think you might be able to find an IDE RAID controller that offers it (I can't think of any at the moment, though). However, you will need at least 3 hard drives of the same size to run RAID 5.

<i>I don't know anything about computers... but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night...</i> :lol:

 

[Guest]

When you set up a raid array, you will basically wipe the disks and create any partitions you need under the new raid setup. This will delete all the data on your disk you have already.

The answer is to use Norton Ghost to create an image of the OS partitions, and back up those images to CD's. Then save all other data you need to cd's as well

once this is done, you can setup the raid array and create the partitions you need. Then you can restore the OS's from the Ghost images, and be close to finished.

The only question is whether or not the OS's will recognise the raid controller and work properly. You might need to install the drivers before everything works correctly.
Win9x should be no problem, while NT/2K might be. Linux has support for some ide raid controllers, but it is more complicated.

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I have not yet begun to procrastinate.