Fastrak TX2000 - add drive with data w/o loss?

[Jkun]

The FAQ and manual are vague on this issue.

I have a drive with large amount of data and would like to add it to a raid. For this, I'd like to add it as a single drive, copy the data to the existing raid0 and then with added 4th drive format the it to another raid0.

How do I best do this without losing the data? The manual only covers this when creating a security raid with exisiting data (and advises previous backup, which I'd like to skip if possible - 120GB of data...)

Is it safe to just select a single drive span array for this drive? How do I tell Fastrak not to format?

Thx!

Neko

[Brian Ellis]

Am not sure if I understand you completely but if I do, I'd set up 2 drives as Raid0, put the drive containing your data as IDE2 (pref master, but it's not very important), copy the data from this drive to the Raid array. When you are satisfied that the data is perfectly OK on the array, you can then set it up, along with your fourth drive as a second Raid0 array. Of have I misunderstood?

[Jkun]

I dind't really make it very clear, did I. Sorry, it was early in the morning, and I really needed to go to sleep.

Anyway, I guess you could summarize the question by: how do I make a single drive work on a Promise Raid controller (and preferably install it without having to format it)?

Is this possible? Can you make it function as an IDE controller, rather than Raid?

Neko

[nunchalnaomi]

How about putting single drive as slave temporarily on eide chain. Then transfering files. Then hook it up as 2 drive raid with pci controller and format. Not sure if you can add drive on eide without formatting, but it is worth a try.

[mits]

Hi,
you can add your hard drive to your raid controller without setting up anything on the controller bios and your controller will work as a normal ide controller for this drive. Since you already have setup a raid-0 you will have to define your extra drive as slave because both master positions are already taken. Copy your data, add the 4th drive and define a new raid-0 array with drives 3 & 4 and then format the new array.
If your raid controller is embedded on the m/b then there is a great chance to only support one raid-0 or one raid-1 and the extra drives to work as single IDE drives only.

[Jkun]

Thanks for the info, but Promise (PCI card controller BTW) does not work this way, at least not on the cheap controllers.

If you add a drive, it is not automatically accessible. Mine is formatted but not accessible after conncting it to the TX2000. I have to define a raid0 or span on it to make it accessible, but then the controller wants to format it again, not good when you want to keep the data.

Neko

[mits]

Jkun,
I think that promise's fastbuild bios is more or less the same in many of their products. (The bios of my mobo's embedded promise controller a PDC20276 and a modded Ultra66-->fasttrak are almost the same.) So, have a look at page 19 of your manual (FatTrak TX2000) and you'll see that you can add a drive and manually create an array of 1 disk in stripe mode. I've done this before with two single drives in stripe mode. I'm sorry but i cannot remember if i reformatted the drives after that or not (it was 2 years ago).

[nunchalnaomi]

an external hard drive case with usb connection are fairly cheap if you have no other options.

[Marshmallowman]

from general experince with cheaper consumer raid cards, you usually lose your data when creating or changing an array type....More expenisve solutions allow you to rebuild and keep your data.

I would think you would have to store the data on another drive and then create and format a raid 0 array and then copy the data back.

[landrover]

You can attach the single drive to one of the IDE ports on the controller card and define it as a Spanning array. Which is exactly what I did with my system drive.
On boot-up the Promise BIOS detects 2 arrays
1. single drive (spanning)
2. 2 drives on RAID 0 (striping)

The onboard IDE ports on the mainboard are used by the DVD and CD writers, so no Master/Slave difficulties here. Works a treat!

In other words, the Promise Controller is perfectly suitable for use as an ordinary IDE controller.