Can I build a raid 5 array with hard disk already containing data?

Snowwie

New Member
Situation is as follows, I have two 4TB drives which are independent. I want to add another 4TB drive (maybe even two) and create a single Raid 5 array.
But, the two existing hard drives are containing about 4.5TB data, which I cannot store elsewhere. My question is, is it possible to create a Raid 5 array under Windows and retain the information on the drives?
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
Not really, in order to build the array you have to initialize all of the drives with parity data.

If you just want a within-windows software array you could make a small partition on each drive, software RAID that within Windows and then shuffle data over and expand, but that's a huge pain in the ass, and you couldn't add them in a controller after without also losing your data.

You'll need to get another drive with sufficient capacity you could shuffle the data to like an external.
 

Snowwie

New Member
Thank you for your reply, I was also thinking about this array. With 3 drives of each 4TB I would have 12TB, but only 8TB would be available. I already have 4.5TB in use. Since it would be a pain in the a$$ to redo a 3 drives raid 5 array to a 4 drives raid 5 array I think it's better to directly get 2 other drives of 4TB. But I still need to figure out where to put the 4.5TB I have divided over those two separate disks?????
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
Since it would be a pain in the a$$ to redo a 3 drives raid 5 array to a 4 drives raid 5 array
That's the easy part, you can easily expand the array with more drives, it just takes a while to 'resilver' the drives as they recalculate parity onto te new drive.

A 6 or 8 TB external would probably be your most cost effective bet. You could even theoretically shuck it after you're done and add it into the array later if you wanted to, although you'd lose the ability to use it again later to migrate data in a similar fashion.
 

Snowwie

New Member
Well, everything is ready to assemble. I ordered 3 extra new drives of 4TB, I managed to squeeze the existing information on 1 of those drives, although I had to delete one of my Truecrypt backup files (which was 1TB), but I still have 3 of those left, so no real big deal. But now I am thinking about Raid 5 in general. If I look for "Recover Broken Raid 5 Array" then the information I get is pretty little. It does not seem that in Windows 10 there is a native recovery option for raid 5, even though you can make a "storage pool' in Windows 10 (Or I completely missed that option). The homeserver contains basically mostly movies and tv-shows and a Truecrypt container for my private photo's and video's. But that Truecrypt container I also have on my own pc, and two of them on another pc. I regularly synchronize them with "FreeFileSync", works like a charm.
So with the risk of any of the 4 drives can crash I am also thinking about two sets of a raid 0 array. The benefit of that are two things: Speed and keeping all space. Cons are of course, no redundancy at all, and if one drive goes, you loose the data on the other as well, without option of recovery. But it would only apply to one raid 0 array at that point. With raid 5 ALL hard drives are involved and if you do not recover proper then you loose ALL your information. And another con is that you also loose 4TB of space. Question you probably would ask: How important is the data? Well, I did burned over 100 Blu Ray disks with tv-shows, until my Blu Ray burner gave out (and I never bought another one again), and most movies are redownloadable, and the backupfile is present on my own computer and on another computer twice. And normally I also keep a hard drive off site, but currently I don't have that. Raid 5 or double Raid 0? I am not sure anymore.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
I wouldn't double RAID 0. In any redundancy scheme with RAID levels you give up a drive x amount of space in order to have enough parity data to cover a drive (RAID5) or two (RAID6). It seems to me like the data you have isn't worth investing even <$100 into, so whatever scheme works best for you from a capacity and performance standpoint.
 

Snowwie

New Member
For now I need first a freaking FM2/FM2+ mounting bracket for the new cooler I bought for the homeservers motherboard. I am stuck at getting such a simple part, which I seem not be able to find in my own country (The Netherlands) and if bought at AliExpress, it takes 30-50 days to get it.
I don't like the idea my homeserver being that long offline.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
IIRC AM3 coolers are compatible with FM2, you should be able to reuse that (which is also the same as AM2, but different than AM4).
 

Snowwie

New Member
Yes, but if you don't have the mounting bracket for that cooler, since that cooler works with mounting clips instead of screws, I only can use the backplate of the previous cooler. But I am missing the mounting bracket which normally is present in the box of the motherboard. But that thing has been gone.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
As AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2 utilize the same hole dimensions you can use a backplate from any of those boards, if that helps out your searching any.
 

Snowwie

New Member
As AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2 utilize the same hole dimensions you can use a backplate from any of those boards, if that helps out your searching any.
I do already have a backplate, I simply don't have the mounting bracket that goes between the backplate and clips of the (Zalman) cooler.
 
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