Converting RAID1 to SSD - best way to do it?

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Glowrdr

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Sep 3, 2015
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So I have a failing HDD (not part of this question) and its going to cause me to redo my system a bit. Failing drive is a 1.5 TB storage drive that hasn't stopped yet, but its making enough noise that the wifey came and got me.

But anyway - currently I'm running 2 WD Black 500GB drives in Raid1. I've picked up a couple of Samsung 256 SSD's and would like to move my OS and currently installed apps to those (keeping RAID), I'd then repurpose my WD Blacks to additional software, and I'll be picking up 2 additional storage drives and raiding those as well.

I am not super familiar with RAID, so I am unsure if I can do a straight ghost copy from Sata to SSD and have all the correct RAID structures keep intact? Or can I remove one of the drives, and just add the SSD to the RAID and let it recreate itself? Thinking that might not work due to the size difference, but not positive. I'm currently only using 181 gig of space, so I have more than enough headroom on the drives to accomplish this.

Anyone have any pointers for me?
 
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Mattios

Mattios

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Jun 24, 2013
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Generally cloning is a bad idea, it rarely if ever works. You're better off making the new RAID, fresh installing the OS and moving documents and files along between drives when you've got the new OS set. Remember you can't move most programs over, they'd need to be reinstalled.
 
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Glowrdr

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Sep 3, 2015
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I was hoping to avoid that if possible. I'd rather take the chance cloning it, and know that as a last resort, I'd have to rebuild. Part of my reasoning behind this is that I upgraded my case and power supply, and inadvertently hit the reset button on the MB. Long story short, I broke raid and my computer never worked right after that. I ended up having to reload everything anyways, just a few days prior to W10 coming out. So while it is feasible - I'd rather not have to reload the OS and all software and reconfigure everything AGAIN when I just did it a month ago. If that's my only option, so be it. But is cloning, or reducing the RAID size and adding an SSD to the current RAID (and removing them systematically) an option? Hoping a few more people chime in with either news - good or bad.
 
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Glowrdr

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Sep 3, 2015
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I'm probably talking to myself at this point, but I always hate when there is a forum that the posts just stop without any info. So what I have done so far, is to break my RAID. Currently, windows only sees one drive. Assuming its because they are so identical, it confuses the OS (says one of my drives is disabled). I'm going to install windows 10 on the SSD, and essentially run dual booted (is that the proper term when its 2 physically different drives with the same OS?). I'll have 2 fully functioning drives, and I will just compare, install, and transfer data between the 2 until I am fully satisfied I am back to a state of satisfaction of stuff on the SSD. Then I will add 2nd SSD, join them both to an array. Once that is done, I will format both WD mech drives, and join them both together again. Finally - I'm hoping that I can just purchase another 1.5 TB drive, join those 2, and once the mirror process is complete - I will decommission the bad drive, and replace with a new one.

So in the end, I'll have doubled my drive count from 3 to 6, but I will have added 2 complete arrays. Here's to hoping I never have to rebuild a system from scratch again!
 
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