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Convert non-RAID 1 to RAID 1

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jpanhalt:
My data drives are all RAID 1 , but from the earliest days, my OS and other programs (C Drive) are on a non-RAID drive, which is now an SSD.  I figured reloading everything every once in awhile was a good way to clean Windows.  I am now on Win7 Pro and will be there for as long as possible.

Can the C Drive be copied to a RAID 1 pair, and that drive then made default (i.e., C)?  More simply, is there any way to add just one new drive and convert the current C-drive to RAID1 without erasing it? 

(Why am I worried?  Unfortunately, I have had two RAID SSD's die in the past 4 years.  The first died about 2 years after installation, and the second died last week 4 years after installation.  Both drives were Samsung "EVO."  The latest was a V-NAND 850 EVO.  I am worried about getting all my good old trusty programs re-installed and activated today.)

retiredfeline:
There is a way involving creating a degraded RAID-1 array on the second drive, copying the C contents to that, and then adding the C drive as the missing RAID partner. I did this years ago following this article, but it's for Linux, not Windows.

https://feeding.cloud.geek.nz/posts/setting-up-raid-on-existing/

Good luck.

Microdoser:
In windows, once you have fitted the empty drive,

go into the partition manager (start menu, search for 'part', select 'create and format hard drive partitions')

make your boot drive dynamic (right click main drive on the grey box at the bottom left where it says 'Disk 0' or whichever is your C drive mine is Disk 1, choose 'convert to dynamic disk')

select the empty drive as a mirror of your main drive (right click main drive, choose 'Select Mirror'or 'Add mirror', select empty drive), it may be that the empty drive has to be converted to a dynamic disk also but from memory I do not think this is the case. Try it if you have problems selecting it as the mirror.

Then windows will then happily chug away, making the drives into RAID 1.

I'm not on Windows 7 any more, so some of these steps may have slightly different text for the options.

jpanhalt:

--- Quote from: Microdoser ---Then windows will then happily chug away, making the drives into RAID 1.
--- End quote ---

Interesting.

Does that mean it will be independent of the Intel RAID controller currently being used?

Microdoser:
Yes, it will be a software RAID via windows

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