Troubleshooting RAID Migration Issues

General information

• RAID migration overview
• Drive capacity after a RAID migration to RAID 5

Troubleshooting

• Extra drive space not available after a RAID migration
• Failure occurs in the middle of migration

General information

RAID migration overview

A RAID migration allows you to convert a RAID-Ready system into a RAID 0, 1, 5, or 10 configuration, or from a RAID 0, 1, or 10 volume to a RAID 5 volume.

If you have a RAID-Ready configuration, you can add any SATA hard drives necessary and use the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology user interface to start the migration. The migration does not require a reinstall of the operating system.

The time required to complete a migration depends on the size of the hard drives. During the migration, the system is functional and all applications and data remain intact. Some disk-intensive tasks might run more slowly during a RAID migration.

Drive capacity after a RAID migration to RAID 5

The available space in the array, or the capacity, may increase after a migration from RAID 0, RAID 1, or RAID 10 to RAID 5, depending on the migration being performed.

Use the following table to determine whether there will be available capacity after migration. Any available capacity can be utilized by creating a second volume in the array.

¹ This assumes that the RAID 0 volume utilized 100 percent of the original array capacity. If the RAID 0 volume utilized less than 100 percent of the original array capacity, there may be available space in the array after the migration completes.

Other impacts to the array include the following:

• The array size will increase after migration, except when migrating from 4-drive RAID 10 to 4-drive RAID 5; in that case, the array size will remain the same.
• The array size and available array capacity (Free Space) can be seen using the Intel Rapid Storage Technology user interface.
• The volume size will not change during a migration from RAID 0, RAID 1, or RAID 10 to RAID 5.
• You can use the available space in the array by creating a second volume.

Troubleshooting

Extra drive space not available after a RAID migration

To ensure that non-Windows* partitions are kept intact, the migration to RAID does not utilize the extra space made available by adding a second hard drive. Use one of the following options to take advantage of the extra hard drive space.

• Create a new partition using Windows Disk Manager
• Extend the partition using a third-party software utility like Partition Magic* or Partition Commander*
• Extend the volume using the Windows Vista* Disk Manager

Create a new partition using Windows Disk Manager

Use the following steps to create a new partition.

1. Click Start.
2. Click Control Panel.
3. Double-click Administrative Tools.
4. Double-click Computer Management.
5. Click Disk Management in the left-hand program tree (it is located under the Storage subsection). You may want to maximize the window.
6. At this point, you should see your RAID volume represented as a physical disk that includes any partitions from your original drive. After any partitions, you may see a grey area labeled Free Space. Partition and format this space in order to use it.

Extend the volume using Windows Vista* Disk Manager

Use the following steps to extend the volume.

1. Click the Start icon.
2. Click Control Panel.
3. Click System and Maintenance.
4. Click Administrative Tools.
5. Double-click Computer Management.
6. Click Continue.
7. Click Disk Management in the left-hand program tree (it is located under the Storage sub-section). You may want to maximize the window.
8. Right-click the volume (represented as a physical disk) and click Extend Volume.

Failure occurs in the middle of migration

The RAID migration feature contains advanced safety algorithms to ensure that an interrupted migration does not result in data loss or corruption.

If the migration process is interrupted via a power loss or system reset, the migration will resume from the point of its most recent progress upon the next system reboot.