Sata Raid 1 setup

[Lazlowe]

I currently have a pair of sata drives set up in Raid 1 configuration(mirrored). I'm running out of disk space (and money) and would like to use both drives. I've looked on google for some answers but no luck.
QUESTION: Can I just quit the raid array and go to JBOD on boot up without losing data on the drive? Or do I need to disconnect one drive, select JBOD mode, reformat the drive that's connected and then reconnect the other drive as my boot drive?
I do NOT want to have to reinstall OS and all the other stuff on the drives!

[Madmax]

This is what i would try:

In order to set JBOD you need at least 2 HD's in order to do so as it configures through the raid controller. So 1 HD will not allow the option to setup JBOD. So the plan to uhook one then setup JBOD can't be used.

What i would do is unplug both HD's and then disable RAID in the Bios. So you don't use the Raid setup anymore.

Then boot one Drive only (don't set it up on the controller) (just plug it in on the Sata plug in on Mobo) as they are mirrored so either or HD should boot the system all by themselves.

Once done, shut down ... Don't setup anything on the raid controller, just plug the HD's in on the sata plug-ins. This will be just like having a normal PC setup with IDE.

If you do configure JBOD you may lose all Data in the process.

Now... i am just going off of what i think should be correct as it would make sense... so if you do it my way and it screws-up don't blame me... [img]/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img]

If anyone else can confirm this please post.

[Lazlowe]

Ok, but if I plug both drives back in at the end, will I have problems booting up since both drives have the OS on them? Or do you mean to format the first drive - "boot one drive only" and then use the second drive as the boot drive?

[Madmax]

Use the main drive which ever is on Sata 1 plugin to boot from.

In the bios only one will boot up, it will be the main drive on Sata 1 plugin, kinda like a dual boot. The bios will choose Sata 1 plugin to boot from, unless you manually changed it to use the Sata 2 plugin to boot from other drive.

But yes you can format One drive first if you choose, i recommend the one on the Sata 2 plugin, but i would just boot em both and if you can get into windows, blow away the second HD, partition it and format it the way you want.

[tired-n-cranky]

You may lose everything when breaking the mirror. But by the same token, you may not. Depends on the hardware and if it was a true mirror or not.

[Lazlowe]

Max - thanks for the help - worked exactly as you said. Unplugged the #1 sata drive, booted up into BIOS, removed RAID in BIOS, shut down, reconnected #1 SATA drive, rebooted and formatted #2 SATA drive. No data lost - all is GOOD. Now have 1.3 Terabytes of storage between internal and external drives. Thanks!

[Madmax]

Great to see it worked out as it seemed to be the logical way of try this as both HD's had the same info on them, just don't create another array now as then you will lose everything for sure or don't even try making a JBOD setup.