[SOLVED] Windows Drive Mirroring Question

[jbrigan]

My PC has a 256 GB SSD system drive. I have 2 spare 1TB SSD drives. I want to use the 1TB drives, mirrored, but I don't want to re-install Windows 10. Will this work; Add 1 of the 1TB drives, create a 256GB partition, and another partition that uses the rest of the available space. Mirror the 256GB system drive to the 1 TB drive 256GB partition. Will that part work? Then I would break the partition by removing the 256GB drive. The 1TB drive should still boot into Windows, correct? At that point I would remove the 256GB drive, install the second 1TB drive, do the same thing; create 256GB partition, another partition for the rest. Then mirror the first 1TB drive to the second. What I'm trying to ultimately achieve is have a C: and D: volume that is mirrored to a second drive. The mobo only has 2 SATA ports. Thanks in advance.

 

[USAFRet]

What are you actually trying to achieve?
Why the 'mirror'?

 

[jbrigan]

What are you actually trying to achieve?
Why the 'mirror'?

People mirror drives for redundancy.

 

[USAFRet]

People mirror drives for redundancy.

Yes, I know. Typically a RAID 1.
Physical drive redundancy. Not data redundancy.

There are much better ways to safeguard your data.

 

[jbrigan]

Not looking to debate backups vs. mirroring. Just looking for answers to my technical questions. Thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

I don't believe you can create a RAID 1 from a running system and retain the data, esp the OS drive.
Not even within Storage Spaces in WIndows.

Create the RAID array first, and then populate it.

 

[popatim]

Unless things have recently changed - Windows cannot mirror C: via storage spaces.

Raid only mirrors drives, not partitions.

The non-free versions of Macrium Reflect can restore an image to different hardware if you were interested.
basically install Reflect, create an image, create a rescue drive, remove the 256. Raid the 1tb, boot from the rescue drive, create your 256gb partiton if you didn't just want to expand it to use the entire 1tb, & restore your image.