Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > General Storage > Changing raid controllers?
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Confused_Chimp   12-23-2006 at 03:44:22 AM

OK so if a hard drive fails in a raid 1 or 5 for example, one of the benefits is that you should be able to rebuild all the data and not lose anything.
However what happens if your motherboard or raid card developes a fault and breaks?
Take for example a raid 5 consisting of hard drives. Now if you have an onboard raid controller on the motherboard and the motherboard dies. Will you be able to buy a different motherboard with a different raid controller, but one that supports raid 5 and then plug your hard drives back in and keep all your data? Or do different raid controllers implament the raid in different ways? making this sort of thing incompatible.
Cheers
CC

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Dante_Jose_Cuervo   12-23-2006 at 04:47:15 AM
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Well... this is a question that doesn't have a straight answer. If you were to buy an identical mobo with the same kind of controller then I suppose it MIGHT work... but you're proposing using a different mobo... with a different RAID chip. Honestly, I don't think it would be possible unless you got some third-party software to keep your data. Once again, this is why I am a huge advocate of dedicated RAID controllers.

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Confused_Chimp   12-23-2006 at 09:42:45 AM
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I can see your point, but the raid controller card can still die as well. I just meant that if the piece of hardware the raid controller is attached to dies, can you recover your raid with a different raid controller. Whether that be an onboard controller or a dedicated controller.
But by the sounds of it, if the controller dies, you loose your date. full stop. Which is where a hard drive on its own has advantages to a raid it seems.
Cheers for you help.
If my understanding is incorrect, please correct me and add any further comments.
Cheers
CC.

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BustedSony   12-23-2006 at 10:13:14 AM
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Quote :

I can see your point, but the raid controller card can still die as well. I just meant that if the piece of hardware the raid controller is attached to dies, can you recover your raid with a different raid controller. Whether that be an onboard controller or a dedicated controller.
But by the sounds of it, if the controller dies, you loose your date. full stop. Which is where a hard drive on its own has advantages to a raid it seems.
Cheers for you help.
If my understanding is incorrect, please correct me and add any further comments.
Cheers
CC.



The controller does try to find the correct arrangement as long as you enter the Raid type in the Bios setup for the controller. It would be a good idea to remember the stripe size though. The order of each stripe pair doesn't matter, but you should know which is the parity drive, and which the data drives.

While There is no absolute guarantee, Raid is Raid, it's not a proprietary technique.

I have succesfully moved a Raid 0 Boot pair from a Silicon Image controller to a Jmicron onboard controller. After installing the drivers with a floppy the new system actually booted and installed all the needed motherboard drivers. I was quite pleased.

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croc   12-23-2006 at 10:34:55 AM
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Best answer I can give is maybe, maybe not. Depends on controller, version, etc. Best bet is that it will be problematic. Worst is, good luck.

Sure wish there was a standard....

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stuart   12-23-2006 at 10:55:16 AM
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There is a standard for RAID 5. Its ... RAID 5.

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audiovoodoo   12-23-2006 at 11:10:34 AM
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In corporate environments it is not uncomon to have spare cards and drives in stock in case of failure. This is one reason why corporates tend to go with standard configurations so they can swap parts from stores. With big servers and large arays you would almost certainly have a support contract. Let the HW vendor get you back up and running.

Home environments are a different matter. I've seen good arguments made for Software RAID as providing you connect your drives to the correct channels you can move between hardware.

At the end of the day RAID is not a backup solution. You should not relly on RAID to protect your data. RAID deals well with the lower MTBF of hardrives with moving parts. Modern electronics are proving to be very reliable all things considered. Buy a qaulity product with good waranty and keep doing backups.

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livelee   12-23-2006 at 04:38:14 PM
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I've had a mobo die with a raid 0 on it. Bought the same mobo again and all was back up and running.

Unless you buy a spare mobo I don't think we can say what will happen in the future. I'd be pretty confident of a ICH7 raid working on a new ICH8 mobo. I'd imagine all new chips from intel will be backwards compatible as well.

The only safe way is a decent raid in your machine with a decent backup and also having a spare of each component.

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