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I currently have Intel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Corporation 82801FR SATA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SATA RAID controller with 2x120g hdd, using RAID 1, and I want to upgrade it to 2x500g hdd.  I purchased 2 WD 500 Caviar GP SATA drives and am not sure how to proceed.  If I take out one of the 120's, and replace it with a 500 and allow the array to rebuild, I'll only have 120 capacity, right? So will this process work? I'm using a Dell Dimension E310 (don't laugh, it does the job) :-)
Here is my idea-
Break the array by disconnecting the 120 on port 2.  Replace with a new 500g hdd.  Use Norton Ghost 10 to do a drive copy of the existing 120 on port 1 to the 500 on port 2 using the full capacity.  Next take out the 120 on port 1, and moving the 500 up to port 1, adding the remaining 500 to port 2, and rebuilding the array that way?  I do have a ghost image of the current 120 on a removable hdd, but don't see how to get that to work.  Any advice?  

I read that I should back up the 120g, then replace both 120's with the 2 new 500's, then restore the 120 to it, but I only have the 2 SATA ports available with mb, so I don't see how I can do that and not lose access to the OS.  

thanks,
bmanSC

my best advice would be to back up your hd, before continuing. Technically your idea should work, just each time you swap a hd youll need to rebuild the raid. best of luck to you let us know how it works out.

The ghost image would be useful if you lost the raid and have to install the OS onto the 500gb, then using the ghost image you can retorse to your previous OS setup.

Uh, no, this will NOT work on Intel Matrix RAID. Once a RAID is built it CANNOT be expanded unless the RAID adapter supports a feature called "On-line expansion".

A fully built RAID array's size is fixed.

Booting to a Ghost CD will not work unless the Ghost CD has RAID drivers.
 

If you did what you are think of, replacing one drive and a time and REBUILDING the existing RAID array, you'd end up with a 120GB RAID array with 380GB unused. You would have to create a second RAID array to use the 380GB. Intel Matrix RAID does NOT support On-Line Expansion.

Or You would attempt to Ghost from a degraded RAID array to a Stand Alone Drive. The new 500 GB drive will not logically be part of a RAID. Adding a second 500GB drive and creating a RAID array will kill all the data you just Ghost'ed to the drive. You can't create a new 500GB RAID unless both 500GB drives are installed.

Best to build a second array with 500GB (second RAID adapter if need be), create a partition covering the entire new array, and then copy all the data to it, then delete the 120GB array AFTER you are sure all the data is moved over and accessible/functional before deleting the existing 120GB array.

I consider myself bright with this sort of thing, but for some reason, I'm not seeing how I can do it.  I do have an external 500g drive, would that be any use?  I seems like if I make a new RAID 1 with 2x500g, how will I boot to be able to move the data from the external to the RAID.  If I have to buy another RAID adapter, would I not be better off just buying one that does support "on-line expansion".  So if I understand what you are saying CheapAsianGamerGuy, that with the Intel Matrix RAID, I'm always stuck with the 120g size?  Sounds poor. 

 Another thing I'm not clear on - if I break the RAID, and somehow get the old 120g image to a 500 gig drive, utilizing the full 500 gig, how would creating a RAID1 from that with another 500gig drive lose all the data?  Does RAID1 not basically just image port 1 to port 2 when it rebuilds?  

 thanks for all the input.

bmanSC

Okay, one thing at a time.

1) External Drive: GREAT IDEA! It will work, just attach to system and copy all data over, make sure it's all there. Shut down, decommission and detach old RAID drives. Install new internal drives and build new RAID. Create new partition and format. Copy everything over from the external drive. Data migration complete. Possible Down Side: USB and FireWire are SLOW. 120GB isn't that much to copy, however.

2) How can you move the data? File -> Copy. Paste into external drive once attached and auto-detected.

3) Yeah buying a new RAID adapter with online expansion is a GREAT idea... for the *future*. RAID LOGICAL DRIVES CANNOT BE PORTED FROM CONTROLLER TO CONTROLLER. (Yes I'm a server guy in real life, this has been true since the bad old days of SCSI) ALL OF THE RAID ARRAY CONFIGURATIONS RESIDE ON THE RAID CONTROLLER. If you buy a new controller and attach old drives to it, all it will see is 2 drives that it can build a NEW RAID ARRAY from.  Which leads me to my next point:

4) WHEN you build a NEW ARRAY, it WIPES the drives and leaves you with a LOGICAL DISK/VOLUME with NO PARTITION. (Blank "virtual" disk, no files)

5) When you "REBUILD" a RAID ARRAY, you are RESTORING THE DATA INTEGRITY OF A EXISTING ARRAY. Adding a 500GB HDD to a 120 GB RAID1 means you have... wait for it... 120 GB more space you can "expand" the partition to cover with something like Partition Magic (and also puts you at RAID 5 with 3 HDD's) That's because the basis disk of the RAID was... 120 GB! But this will ONLY work if you have a free port on the RAID adapter AND the adapter supports on-line migration, which yours does not. So this is right OUT.

6) On-line Migration solves your problems... but your EXISTING controller does NOT support it. And creating a new array out of existing HDD's WIPES them as I mentioned.

7) Which leads me all back to where I started. You need to somehow create a NEW RAID ARRAY that's blank and somehow preserve your data and get it on the NEW, BLANK ARRAY (with blank partition).

You might think you're bright, but you're obviously not experienced with data migrations. Feel free to try it Your Way, if it does not work and you end up losing data, well, I warned you how RAIDs work. The added complexity is why I don't suggest it for Casual Home Use.
 

NOW it makes sense!!  I totally missed that RAID ARRAY was creating a Logical Disk/volume - of course!  Thank you so much for taking the time to clarify that for me.  I feel like a goof!  If you have time, can you help clear up a few issues?

 1)  Using the external drive - should I use something like NortonGhost to make a complete copy of the drive and make it bootable, so that if anything goes wrong, I may could in theory, use the external as a boot device if I remove both of the 120g from the array?

2)  If I remove both the 120gs from the RAID array, and replace with the 500's, and something goes wrong, could I put the 120's back in?  In other words, where is the logical disk information for the array stored?  as long as those two 120's are together, will the intel matrix see it as a RAID?

3) Lastly, when I use the external drive, install the new internal 500's, build the RAID, create the new partition and format, how am I accessing the OS?  I'm I doing that all from within the Intel Matrix console that is available during boot?

thanks again - sounds like this will be working soon.

bmanSC

1) Ah, I was assuming your RAID was for data storage when you mentioned music files and whatnot. Having to migrate the OS on this volume GREATLY complicates matters. Using something like Ghost with an External Drive is the optimal solution, *but* You cannot GHOST while booted to your OS (OS locks files open). Building and booting to a WinPE/BartPE environment is generally the best solution. For your scenario you need to make sure that the PE boot CD you build has proper RAID and USB/FireWire/ESATA drivers so when you run Ghost from withing the PE environment you can see both your external drive *AND* your internal RAID.

2) Nope, once you CREATE a new RAID array the old RAID array config is tossed and POOF gone forever. Your DATA exists on the drives, but the RAID controller will not understand how to handle them. If you took the 500's out and put the 120's back in, the RAID array controller will go "I can't put a 500GB RAID on these drives, would you like to build a new array with these 120's?" Once you build a new array, the array config for the old array is tossed. And creating a new array wipes all existing data on the drives when you Initialize the new array. Your ONLY option for recovering data once an array config is lost is a data recovery application that can try to find file associations on a sector level, like GetDataBackNT.

3) You can't access the OS on the new 500GB RAID unless you do a new OS install on the new RAID array. As I mentioned doing a OS migration on a RAID is a PAIN IN THE BUTT. You need something like Ghost that can do sector by sector copy and preserve the File Allocation Table/Partition Data. At previous places I've worked we like to keep the C:\ small so we can use a network boot to Ghost the C:\ to an image file stored on a server somewhere. This is great if your C\ OS partition is 10 GB or smaller, but you've got 120 GB and no server space you can put stuff. Ghost boot CD's can't natively see all RAID arrays or USB controllers (for your external drive solution). Which is why I suggested manually building a WinPE or BartPE boot environment with proper RAID and USB / FireWire / ESATA drivers pre-loaded, then embedding Ghost on it. That way when you boot to the WinPE or BartPE you can see all your drives and still use Ghost to image the drive to/from other disks or volumes. Booting to a WinPE/BartPE means the OS can be read by Ghost as no files are locked.

Ack, you're bringing up some bad memories >.< can you tell I've had to do this more than a few times? 

If you want to learn a bit more about the way a RAID array works in depth, Wikipedia has a very good article on that subject. Because of RAID's downsides (like this) every computer that I have build has been JBOD.