Re: making partitions on an existing raided system


"Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jaimie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:rf9gt3p8uf13s3kb37tmp30ev6it8vbaqr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:26:06 -0000, "dave" <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I want to do a complete rebuild of my main PC which has a sizeable amount
of
date on it (400GB) which I plan to backup using Acronis TrueImage v11.

What are you backing up to? External USB hard drive, network hard
drive or similar?

At the moment it has 2 x 300GB drives which I believe are operating as a
RAID. I guess that would be RAID 0 as they present themselves as one
logical
drive partition of about 600GB. It's running under XP Pro buy the way, in
case that makes any difference.

It shows that the RAID0 (or possibly JBOD) is being managed by your
hardware, at least. Which is good news, since it means Acronis won't
have any trouble imaging it off. As far as any software is concerned,
there really is just one 600gig disk there.

You can check in the BIOS, or possibly the BIOS of the RAID chip, to
see what's actually set up.

I'm nervous about using Acronis with a RAID so would like to format both
disks, but with several partitions such that I have one partition for
Windows OS and progs, another for data and then others (3 at least ) for a
dual boot to Linux. Hopefully there's a way to do this so that I can use
both drives flexibly (as if they were one) and also in a way such that
Acronis back-up won't fall over.

You're better off not sticking with the existing RAID0 setup. It gives
you twice the chance of losing everything, since either disk could
pop. Personally, I'd pop out and buy a 750gig drive.

But you can go ahead if you like. Image off the data using Acronis,
then use Acronis to repartition, then restore the C: and data as you
wish.

But: Acronis backups are most useful when you're intending to restore
the whole lot onto the same partition setup. If you were intending to
take the opportunity to reinstall a clean Windows, then you might as
well just copy your data off to the external backup drive instead of
creating an Acronis image of it. In fact, I don't think you can tell
Acronis to *not* restore that 400gig of data from a C: image onto the
new smaller C: but put it on the new D: instead.

Note that you can only have four partitions on a disk, but if you make
one an extended partition you can subpartition that as many times as
you like.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
It's time to light the candles!
It's time to chant the rites!
It's time to summon Satan on the Muppet Show tonight!

Hi Jaimie,
Thanks for the quick and very helpful reply.
To answer your questions...and raise some myself...

I will back up to a SATA drive in an external enclosure using USB2 as the
interface to the PC. But I'd like to use a network share later on. Is there
anything I need to be careful about now that could influence this choice
later?

Good news about Acronis not having problems with this RAID configuartion.

I looked in the BIOS (AMI P1.40) and could only see it set to RAID where it
had the choice of IDE, RAID or ACPI. No more info to be of help.
Have no idea how to get into the BIOS of the RAID chip. I guess I need to
slow down the start-up sequence to see if there is a clue there.

Not sure what the difference between a RAID 0 and a JBOD?

Yes I agree that it would be better to just have a thunking great hard drive
but the reality is I have two 300GB jobbies and would like to make the best
of them at the mo. (My back-up HDD is a 750GB SATA but that's what holds the
back up so it's a bit of a catch 22. )
But as an aside could I cobble together a selection of various size disks in
RAID 0 configuration or do they all have to be the same size and performance
for best results?

So I am assuming there is no other way than RAID to make both these disc
appear as one logical disk and then to partition them. But is it possible
for a partition to be physically across more than one of the disks? (hope
that makes sense)

Jamie, lastly, you are a star. I have been lurking a bit on this newgroup
and see that you are one of the ones here who consistently come with a very
helpful and positive attitude. Full marks to you and sorry if I am taking up
too much of your time.
Cheers
Dave


.

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