Fresh install of 8.1 - question about raid controller

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Nitas

Nitas

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Oct 18, 2013
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Hello!

So I ordered my copy of 8.1 yesterday and will do a fresh install on my SSD(formatting it beforehand). For storage I have two identical Seagate 2TB drives that are set up in raid 0 so that they are "seen as one drive" in the OS. Now, knowing little about setting up a raid controller and whatnot, what will happen to the drives when I wipe the SSD? I mean, the current controller and settings - along with the BIOS settings - would all be deleted then, right? Something tells me that could end in disaster for the data I have on those two drives, so I would appreciate a pointer or two in what to do here :)
 
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dgingeri
I've done many installs over a 16 year career in computer support and server administration, and many with raid controllers ranging from the integrated Intel controllers to enterprise level controllers, and I have not seen cases where the raid controller or configuration is damaged by an OS reload. Sometimes, the OS doesn't load the drivers for the controller, but as soon as those are loaded, it comes up with the drives intact. This has been the case with Windows of all types, Linux, BSD, or Unix.

If your talking the Intel raid controller, Win 8.1 has all the drivers for every version from the early 915 on up to the Z87. It'll load up that easily and keep everything intact.

However, if you are talking software raid, if you're...
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Nitas

Nitas

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I have indeed made a proper backup before I do anything, thanks :)

Hmm, but when the new OS is up and running, the previous raid controller is gone - you're saying that nothing will happen and they are now seen as two normal drives? By that logic, I suppose it should work to just install the controller again, and everything is back to normal?
 
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dgingeri

dgingeri

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I've done many installs over a 16 year career in computer support and server administration, and many with raid controllers ranging from the integrated Intel controllers to enterprise level controllers, and I have not seen cases where the raid controller or configuration is damaged by an OS reload. Sometimes, the OS doesn't load the drivers for the controller, but as soon as those are loaded, it comes up with the drives intact. This has been the case with Windows of all types, Linux, BSD, or Unix.

If your talking the Intel raid controller, Win 8.1 has all the drivers for every version from the early 915 on up to the Z87. It'll load up that easily and keep everything intact.

However, if you are talking software raid, if you're upgrading from Windows XP, it might lose that. Vista on up will migrate software raid just fine as well.
 
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Nitas

Nitas

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That sounds good, thanks for a great answer!
 
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davejroy

davejroy

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Question: I have a similar situation, except. I was doing a Win 8.1 update, and did not do a backup and it crashed. I had to do a clean Win 8.1 install. My 3 disc 2TB each Raid 0 shows up in my MegaRAID Storage Manager utility software, but not in Win 8.1. I see the RAID 0 2x2TB with a hot spare in Disc Manager as well as a "Unallocated". I pulled one of my good 2TB RAID 0 drives and the hot spare replaced it and it has started the rebuild process on the "hot spare" drive. How can I get this RAID 0 to show up in Disk Manager as an active virtual drive?

P.S.
I realize it would be better to just do a RAID 5 with these 3 drives. I have a NAS on the way and 4x4TB disks as well. I'd like to use the NAS with all 4 of the 4TB disks in RAID 5, and make a back-up of my 2 TB RAID 0, and re-deploy the 3 2 TB disks internal on my rig as a RAID 5 as well.

MB is and ASROCK Extreme 11 with the LSI SAS 2308 controller. 240GB SSD for boot / operating systems, and MS Office, 120 GB SSD for ORIGIN and STEAM game storage location.

Thanks for any assistance with the Disk Manager not recognizing the RAID 0 part of this question.



 
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