# Going from Raid 0 to two separate drives



## Duxx (Jan 1, 2011)

So I have two 320gb Seagate drives in Raid 0 which I use only for documents/pictures/misc. programs.  I have a raptor drive for my OS and most of my games.  I want to get rid of the Raid 0 and just have two stand alone 320gb drives.  Whats the fastest and most efficient way to do this?


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## Disparia (Jan 1, 2011)

Assuming you're using the onboard ICH, can do it through Matrix Storage Manager or Rapid Storage Technology, depending on which one you have loaded.


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## Duxx (Jan 1, 2011)

Jizzler said:


> Assuming you're using the onboard ICH, can do it through Matrix Storage Manager or Rapid Storage Technology, depending on which one you have loaded.
> 
> http://theburnerishot.com/photo/Intel-RST-Manage.png



Soooo don't have to go into BIOS and disable RAID?  What about recovering the data.  Will it just split it up on the two drives?  I have it backed up (well from a week or so ago) but its backed up as a raid, will this affect anything when I try and restore all my documents?


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## Disparia (Jan 1, 2011)

Once the volume is deleted you'll have two empty un-partitioned drives. The data won't survive, so make sure your backup contains all the data you wish to save.

Are you using Windows Backup? It, and nearly all backup software, will allow you to restore files to any location that you specify.

Don't have to switch to AHCI in the BIOS, can keep it as RAID. Doesn't matter to independent drives, they'll continue to run in AHCI mode. Won't have to change anything if you RAID again in the future.


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## Duxx (Jan 1, 2011)

Jizzler said:


> Once the volume is deleted you'll have two empty un-partitioned drives. The data won't survive, so make sure your backup contains all the data you wish to save.
> 
> Are you using Windows Backup? It, and nearly all backup software, will allow you to restore files to any location that you specify.
> 
> Don't have to switch to AHCI in the BIOS, can keep it as RAID. Doesn't matter to independent drives, they'll continue to run in AHCI mode. Won't have to change anything if you RAID again in the future.



So if I have my RAID backed up on an external single drive, when I go to restore my data, I can choose where to place it on either drive?


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## Kreij (Jan 1, 2011)

Just out of curiosity, why do you want to remove the RAID array?


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## Duxx (Jan 1, 2011)

Kreij said:


> Just out of curiosity, why do you want to remove the RAID array?



It didn't increase my speed hardly at all, don't know if my RAID controller is slow as shit, but it takes forever to initialize during boot up.  I'm going to setup another one with two newer drives in a month or so.


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## Kreij (Jan 1, 2011)

Are you using onboard RAID or a seperate controller.
I have two 320s in RAID0 (Intel onboard SATA) and it make quite a bit of difference on my rig.


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## Duxx (Jan 1, 2011)

Kreij said:


> Are you using onboard RAID or a seperate controller.
> I have two 320s in RAID0 (Intel onboard SATA) and it make quite a bit of difference on my rig.



Onboard.


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## JrRacinFan (Jan 1, 2011)

What's your stripe size Duxx? Might help a little bit if you go to 128kb clusters. Also, use Maxblast to recover the data.


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## Duxx (Jan 1, 2011)

JrRacinFan said:


> What's your stripe size Duxx? Might help a little bit if you go to 128kb clusters. Also, use Maxblast to recover the data.



Set it up like a year and a half ago, don't remember what I put as the stripe size.  Anywhere to quickly tell?  I'm pretty sure I put it at whatever was "standard."


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## Kreij (Jan 1, 2011)

Done a defrag lately? How much of the 640GB are you using?
I get about a 30% increase in speed from JBOD to RAID0


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## Duxx (Jan 1, 2011)

Okay well if someone could tell me how to prevent it from taking 30 seconds to load during boot up ill be fine.  One other thing, I have another partition on this drive (for XP) and cannot remove it.  Would this have something to do with the slowboot up time?  When I bootup, it initializes RAID (like 20 seconds) then I have the option of choosing OS, (xp or 7). Also would love to remove this partition but it says I cannot.


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## JrRacinFan (Jan 1, 2011)

Yup very possible. Also check your bios, make sure you have floppy disabled(if you dont have one) and check your boot priority. Should give a touch speedup with proper tweaks.

As for cluster size, Matrix Storage Manager.


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## Duxx (Jan 1, 2011)

JrRacinFan said:


> Yup very possible. Also check your bios, make sure you have floppy disabled(if you dont have one) and check your boot priority. Should give a touch speedup with proper tweaks.
> 
> As for cluster size, Matrix Storage Manager.



Anyway to delete this partition?  It won't let me (don't remember the message, on laptop).  Tried doing it through paragon manager, and through windows itself.


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## JrRacinFan (Jan 1, 2011)

Maxblast should allow it. It comes with a BartPE builder as well that you can burn and boot from an optical drive.


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## Duxx (Jan 1, 2011)

Would I need that?  I can still boot off of my other harddrive which has windows 7 on it.


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## Kreij (Jan 1, 2011)

Here's what I would do (if you don't want the XP boot anymore)
Backup the data on the array.
Nuke the array.
Rebuild the array, make a single partition and format it using long format (to make sure the disks are okay)
Put data back on the array.


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## JrRacinFan (Jan 1, 2011)

Duxx said:


> Would I need that?  I can still boot off of my other harddrive which has windows 7 on it.



Wouldn't always hurt to make one. 

@Uncle Kreij

Basically sums up what i was trying to say! Thanks mister!


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## Kreij (Jan 1, 2011)

What I suggested wll accomplsh 3 things that I think Duxx wants
1) It will remove the unneeded partition
2) It will check the disks for bad sectors
3) It will remove any fragmentation when the data is restored.

Nuke FTW !! lol


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## Duxx (Jan 1, 2011)

So I have been dinking around trying to remove this partition but it won't let me because its my "system" drive and it has the files that are required to boot windows 7.  If I backup and then nuke the RAID (which has the XP partition on it) will it not boot into 7 anymore?  Or will it re-create those files needed.  I have read that I need to copy of some files (boot folder, and bootmgr) so I used EasyBCD to create the bootable media on the other partition.  Is this sufficient?  If I nuke the hard drives with the xp partition, will 7 still be able to boot?  I truely hate hard drives


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