Basic disk -> Striped Volume w/Existing install?

VanGoghComplex

VanGoghComplex

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I have Windows 10 installed on a Samsung 960 EVO 250gb. It's a basic disk.

I've just installed another Samsung 960 EVO 250gb.

Can I convert my Windows install from a single basic disk to a dynamic striped volume across both disks?

My motherboard's raid capability is not quite what I thought it was...
 
If you reinstall it would be easy to do. Taking an existing install would require a image backup then restore onto the new array. There may be 3rd party software that can convert an in place install but I don't know of any.

If you are just looking to add capacity you can also mount the new SSD volume into a folder you need the space on on your current OS install.
 
bigdogchris said:
If you reinstall it would be easy to do. Taking an existing install would require a image backup then restore onto the new array. There may be 3rd party software that can convert an in place install but I don't know of any.

If you are just looking to add capacity you can also mount the new SSD volume into a folder you need the space on on your current OS install.
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Should I reinstall, would I have the ability to do a striped volume from the start? It's been a while since I've reinstalled and don't recall that option.

If that's the route I'd need to take, that would be okay with me. I don't do multiple OS and I keep important stuff on my NAS, so fault tolerance isn't a worry of mine.
 
VanGoghComplex said:
Should I reinstall, would I have the ability to do a striped volume from the start? It's been a while since I've reinstalled and don't recall that option.

If that's the route I'd need to take, that would be okay with me. I don't do multiple OS and I keep important stuff on my NAS, so fault tolerance isn't a worry of mine.
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You would set up striped volume in the onboard RAID controller prior to installing the OS. When you get to the screen to select a disk you would then see a disk twice the size.

What motherboard do you have?
 
bigdogchris said:
You would set up striped volume in the onboard RAID controller prior to installing the OS. When you get to the screen to select a disk you would then see a disk twice the size.

What motherboard do you have?
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I don't have an onboard raid controller. That's why I was asking about a dynamic striped volume and not a regular raid-0 array. I've done regular raid before, just not software raid with Windows. =)

I have an Asus Prime X570-Pro, and while it has two m.2 expansion slots, it seems that it cannot do raid with those. I'm guessing it's because the first slot is CPU connected and the second is chipset connected.
 
VanGoghComplex said:
I don't have an onboard raid controller. That's why I was asking about a dynamic striped volume and not a regular raid-0 array. I've done regular raid before, just not software raid with Windows. =)

I have an Asus Prime X570-Pro, and while it has two m.2 expansion slots, it seems that it cannot do raid with those. I'm guessing it's because the first slot is CPU connected and the second is chipset connected.
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That motherboard has NVMe RAID capability. Page 3-14 on the manual. I don't have instructions on enabling NVMe RAID but I suspect after you enable RAID on the SATA you also enable it on the NVMe setting. Then when you boot there should be an option to enter the RAID controller (CTRL+R) to create the volume. Download the NVMe RAID drivers from AMD's site and have them on a USB drive so you can "load driver" on the Windows Setup screen where you select a disk so you can see it.

Also, here are the commands to use Windows software RAID. If you can't get the onboard RAID working you could try this when you get to the screen to install Windows on a volume. Press Shift and F10 to bring up command prompt. Make sure after you "select" the drive using the command you also type in "clean" to complete wipe the drive. Again, you don't do this if the onboard RAID works. This is only as a secondary option. I actually don't know if the diskpart cmd's even work in WindowsPE.

Don't do this without first backing up data because you will lose everything installed on it.
 
bigdogchris said:
That motherboard has NVMe RAID capability. Page 3-14 on the manual. I don't have instructions on enabling NVMe RAID but I suspect after you enable RAID on the SATA you also enable it on the NVMe setting. Then when you boot there should be an option to enter the RAID controller (CTRL+R) to create the volume. Download the NVMe RAID drivers from AMD's site and have them on a USB drive so you can "load driver" on the Windows Setup screen where you select a disk so you can see it.

Also, here are the commands to use Windows software RAID. If you can't get the onboard RAID working you could try this when you get to the screen to install Windows on a volume. Press Shift and F10 to bring up command prompt. Make sure after you "select" the drive using the command you also type in "clean" to complete wipe the drive. Again, you don't do this if the onboard RAID works. This is only as a secondary option. I actually don't know if the diskpart cmd's even work in WindowsPE.

Don't do this without first backing up data because you will lose everything installed on it.
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I've tried enabling both. My computer just booted as normal. The manual doesn't talk about how to actually set up a raid array. I'll give it some more effort though.

I took an image of my boot drive with Clonezilla last night, so if I can actually get NVMe raid working, it shouldn't take me too long to get up and running again.
 
bigdogchris , thanks! I figured it out. The method for enabling it isn't really intuitive, but then it's been years since I used raid at all.

Windows is currently installing on my new 500gb NVMe Raid-0 array. The only thing I'm unsure of is that while the AMD raid driver package includes both NVMe raid and SATA raid, as soon as I installed the nvme raid drivers my 4tb SATA array showed up as well.

I opted not to install the SATA drivers during the Windows install. Didn't want to cause a conflict.
 
VanGoghComplex said:
bigdogchris , thanks! I figured it out. The method for enabling it isn't really intuitive, but then it's been years since I used raid at all.

Windows is currently installing on my new 500gb NVMe Raid-0 array. The only thing I'm unsure of is that while the AMD raid driver package includes both NVMe raid and SATA raid, as soon as I installed the nvme raid drivers my 4tb SATA array showed up as well.

I opted not to install the SATA drivers during the Windows install. Didn't want to cause a conflict.
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The NVMe RAID driver probably did include the SATA driver as well so that's why the other disk appeared ... it was able to access the controller and show disk.

Glad it worked out. Enjoy.
 
VanGoghComplex said:
bigdogchris , thanks! I figured it out. The method for enabling it isn't really intuitive, but then it's been years since I used raid at all.

Windows is currently installing on my new 500gb NVMe Raid-0 array. The only thing I'm unsure of is that while the AMD raid driver package includes both NVMe raid and SATA raid, as soon as I installed the nvme raid drivers my 4tb SATA array showed up as well.

I opted not to install the SATA drivers during the Windows install. Didn't want to cause a conflict.
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Famous last words. I hope you back up regularly because your raid0 system disk is bound to fail sooner than later, especially when Windows is on it. You _will_ lose all data on the raid0 without chance of recovery.
 
Meeho said:
I don't think you'll notice a difference speed wise.
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I already have. It's not really a "make or break" difference, for sure - my single NVMe drive was definitely not slow. It's noticeable in program installs, which I'm doing a lot of since reinstalling my OS.
 
You would have had a faster and more reliable solution most likely by switching to non-raid0 pci-e based nvme. SATA is a bottleneck.
 
VanGoghComplex said:
SATA? The 960 Evo is an M.2 NVMe drive. There's no SATA involved in my array.
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M.2 can be either SATA or PCI-E based also. But admittedly I had a brain lapse if you already use NVMe. If you already use NVMe, I'm surprised you feel the need to do a raid0 lol.
 
B00nie said:
M.2 can be either SATA or PCI-E based also. But admittedly I had a brain lapse if you already use NVMe. If you already use NVMe, I'm surprised you feel the need to do a raid0 lol.
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It's much less a need than a want, for sure. I just wanted the extra space on C:/, found a good deal on a second drive identical to my first, and figured since my fancy new X570 board supported it, I'd try it out.

Then I "found out" my board didn't support it, posted this thread, was corrected/encouraged by bigdogchris , got it working, and here we are with an unreasonably fast raid-0 NVMe array.

At least until it corrupts. XD
 
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