transferring raid1 array to another motherboard

[jarthel]

for example:

my raid1 setup is currently using an nforce4 board. If I move it to an newish intel (975 and above) board, would the data disappear? how about transferring to a newer nforce chipset?

also any thoughts of moving from intel to nforce?

In all cases, the HDDs will be configured to raid1 again after transferring.

thank you

[Nebulous]

If you're moving the raid from one board to another with different chipsets ( from Nforce to Intel) you will have to recreate the array.

If, for example, your board (Nforce) has died, then all you need to do is replace the board with the same Nforce chipset and your raid will work normally. But, swapping boards with different chipsets, you will have to redo the raid since it's you'll be needing to install the raid drivers all over again. This includes a reinstall of the OS.

I've tried swapping raid arrays from one board to another with different chipsets. As soon as the board boots and it's trying to install the raid drivers, I got BSOD's all over the place. Had no choice but to format, reinstall the OS and the new Raid drivers for the new board. :-/

[jarthel]

but in my case, my boot drive is a single HDD. the raid1 array contains personal files.

[mrgreenjeans]

Each chipset has different coding (drivers) to accomplish it's purpose, hence the swapping of the array will not work, whether the OS is on the array or not.

However, if it's a RAID1, redundancy array, you might be able to install 1 (one) drive and retrieve the information as a 'normal' drive, then install the second drive and reformat to the RAID1 array. Not sure, what do you think guys?

[Nebulous]

Each chipset has different coding (drivers) to accomplish it's purpose, hence the swapping of the array will not work, whether the OS is on the array or not.

However, if it's a RAID1, redundancy array, you might be able to install 1 (one) drive and retrieve the information as a 'normal' drive, then install the second drive and reformat to the RAID1 array. Not sure, what do you think guys?

I know if in RAID1 one of the drives fail, you have the other to retrieve the data and recreate the array when you install the new drive. You're still using the same mobo (chipset), so in that case it is possible

In this case swapping boards with different chipsets it cannot be done.

[shadowdr]

There should be no encoding with a raid1 array. The chipset should only write identical data to two disks. Both disks should be able to be read on any system if installed as a non array disk. Once they drive is read, a raid1 array should be buildable without destroying any data. Drivers will not be resident on the raid1 array but on the OS drive. I have not had to do this before but it would be easy enough to try.

[goffer]

image the drive on current raid1, move drives to new chipset, rebuild raid and place the image back on... that should work.

[jarthel]

copying data to another HDD is not always possible due to the fact that i may not have a spare drive to contain all data especially when the RAID1 consists of 750GB drives. :(

[Maverick0984]

This is one of the large pitfalls of using the raid that comes with a motherboard. If you are aware of the situation before hand, and can take the appropriate precautions then it isn't a terrible thing.

I think you'll have trouble attempting this. Sometimes within the same family of chipsets there are even issues, if there were updates on the later revisions or something. I don't think ICH9R -> ICH10R has this issue, but just an example of what might have issues.

[nd4spdbh2]

going from one intel chipset to another isnt a prob.. i have taken raid 0 arrays from an ich5r and ran them on an ICH7r withouth probs... Now going from an nforce to an intel isnt gonna happen with raid 0... YOU MIGHT be able to with raid 1 as there is no striping of any kind just a complete mirror of disks. but dont count on it back everything up and try it.

[Madwand]

However, if it's a RAID1, redundancy array, you might be able to install 1 (one) drive and retrieve the information as a 'normal' drive, then install the second drive and reformat to the RAID1 array. Not sure, what do you think guys?

Sounds plausible to me, as RAID 1 is a special case, being just about the same as a single drive, and usually has good support for array creation from a single drive. However, I wouldn't advise doing any such operations without a full backup -- there's always some risk involved, particularly for user errors when doing this for the first time.

A backup is logically better than RAID, as long as you keep the backup relatively current. So one idea would be to restore a single drive, get an external enclosure, and keep the second drive in that and use it for external backup (which is disconnected when not in use).