Creating software raid while saving current data.

[JDSANCHEZ]

Is there any way possible that i could setup software raid (lvl 0) while keeping my current install. I have xp on hda and gentoo on hdb, both 80gb drives. I'm wanting to use partition magic and reduce the size of the windows partition enough to leave about 30gb for a raid partion. On hdb i want to creat a 30gb for the other raid disk, and use the remaining space on hdb for storage. Is it possible to do this and save my install, for i would really hate to have the computer down another couple days for install. Thanks in advance

[coolsnowmen]

If you are going to be moving partitions around...you are going to want a place to put the stuff temporarily. Depending on your fs. You could probably use partition magic (or gparted)...but I never depend on it.

Let me get this right...
OLD:
hda -> XP
hdb-> Gentoo

-------------
NEW:
hda -> XP (50), raid0 (30)
hdb -> raid0(30), storage(50)

So you use a P.magick to shrink the XP, make a new partition,
while you're at it move your gentoo partition on hdb to the 50gb " storage."
[If you can't do this last step, you coupld always copy it to the hda2 partition untl you repartition hdb. This feels a bit like the towers of hanoi problem but I see no reason why you can't do it.


Then setup the raid...copy the files to it...and delete them from the storage section.


EDIT: but really why even bother with Raid0...is the speed boost that significant for you? Have you thought about lvm?
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[JDSANCHEZ]

I wasnt really sure how much of a speed increase i would get but i figured i would give it a try. I've come up with a scsi card and a 18gb 16k rpm seagate drive also. If i put 3 drives in a level 0 raid would that be significantly faster than one drive. All 3 will be on seperate controllers. I dont know anything about lvm, i will have to look it up now that you brought it up. Partion magic did everything i needed it to do, i wasnt for sure at first if it would resize/move ext2/3 partitions but it does.

One *problem* i noticed is that the second ide controller on this mobo is slower than the primary, (primary 50-55mb/s, secondary 25-28mb/s). I have a highpoint rocket raid 100 card but its about the same when testing with hdparm as the 28mb/s second controller. So i really have no idea what im going to do, just goofind and trying utilize these drives in the most efficient way possible. Also, when testing the raid (/dev/md0) with hdparm is it supposed to be faster? i get an average of the two drives it seems.

[coolsnowmen]

I have never used lvm but my understanding is that it lets you easily add (and remove) storage to one large virtual space. This sounds like something you might appreciate. Then again, if you are going to use a raid card (easier, but what do you do if the card fails but the drives are still good? I don't know, just asking...), then lvm would be moot/unnecessary.
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emerge: there are no ebuilds to satisfy "moo"