Adding a drive to a Raid 0 configuration

Question

I have two drives in my XPS setup in a Raid 0 configuration. I would like to add a third drive to this setup since I am nearly out of space. Can I do so without losing data? If so, how?

Also would it be possible to just add another drive that will not be part of the Raid 0 configuration?

Any help would be appreciated.

David

davejohn · Answer

Just install the drive as you normally would.  Use Disk Management to format it.  It won't affect your Raid array.  I have 2 drives in Raid 0 and added a 3rd for data storage.   Dave

shotzedog · Answer

Thanks for the advice. That is a good option, but what if I want to add it to my Raid 0 configuration and have a three drive Raid 0 setup. Can I do this without losing the programs and data on my present Raid 0 setup?

ejn63 · Answer

You cannot do RAID 0 with three drives using the system you have. You can only have two drives per array, max.

shotzedog · Answer

Thanks for the help.

dwlovell · Answer

Where does it say you can only do 2 drives in a RAID 0? The Intel Matrix Storage Technology documents on intel.com say that you can have 3 or more in an array and can even do RAID 5. The XPS 410 documents say that you can have only 2 drives in the system because there are only 2 dedicated places to mount them in the case. I have not tried it, but I think you can have 3 drive RAID 0 in the XPS 410. I do not know about the 700, but the original post did not specify which XPS. (there are even 6 SATA connections on the onboard RAID controller that can all be seen by the management software).   -David

shotzedog · Answer

It is a dell Dimension XPS Gen 5. It has three drive bays. The documentation does say you can have three drives in a Raid 0 or 1 configuation--as a spare drive in Raid 1. But it doesn't talk about if you lose data when you reconfigure using the Intel Raid configuration program. I have copy protected software that I don't want have to reinstall.

In any case, I went ahead and bought a new WD 500G drive ($149.00 after rebate) at less than the price I would have paid for a 74G WD Raptor. Hopefully I will be able to install it outside the Raid configuration.

Again thanks for your assistance.

Storage, Drives & Media

Adding a drive to a Raid 0 configuration

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