General Discussions

[federgejzla]

For a number of reasons I started with having multiple disk arrays (pairs) on my X570 managed by RAIDXpert2 that I now have to "undo". Will list them at the end, if interested, but that should not matter.

As each pair is in RAID 1 (mirror), each drive contains all the data. I'd like to preserve that data without having to resort to copying it all elsewhere, then back. If anything, that takes a lot of time. I was looking for a way to just logically restructure those RAID 1 pairs as two individual, legacy, non-RAID drives with equal content, that can be used without RAIDXpert2. I've been searching for this everywhere and could not find clear instructions. As a software developer myself who dealt with low-level disk access, I'd be very unpleasantly surprised if this isn't already available somehow (i.e. don't tell me that it is impossible because I know that it *is*).

RAIDXpert2 UI isn't too clear about this. There is no indication of what is a destructive operation and what isn't. Some documentation (PDFs) I found online aren't helpful either.

How can I do this?

In any case, as promised, my reasons:

• I now need to dual-boot this system (Windows + Linux). I can't find any way to see the drive pairs in Linux.
• I can't use S.M.A.R.T. tools.
• Some (old) drives failed, keeping one of the pair good. I have no interest in reestablishing those arrays but would like to use the good drives in both OSes. Yes, I do expect that those will fail as well.
• I'd like to be able to move some od the drives to other machines/hardware, while keeping the data intact, and not leveraging RAID any more. I rely on RAID in my NAS boxes today.
  
  

[FunkZ]

You can take a single drive of a RAID1 pair out of the system, install it in another computer without RAID, and it will be readable. Now if it contains a boot/OS partition you still want to function, you're likely to run into some reconfiguration challenges there, but all the data is still present.

So to answer your question, you can simply go into BIOS and change the controller setting from RAID to AHCI. All drives should show as single standalone with duplicate data. You can also uninstall the RaidXpert2 software as at that point it is useless without RAID enabled. Obviously make a backup of your data before making any RAID changes to the system.

[federgejzla]

Last time I did that ... it didn't work. Worse, re-creating RAID was destructive. Also, in the interim I'm keeping the drives in the same machine.

[RookieSideloader]

To convert your RAID 1 setup to two individual non-RAID drives in RAIDXpert2:

1. Backup your data (optional but recommended).
2. Open RAIDXpert2, locate the RAID 1 array, and select the option to “Break RAID” or “Convert to non-RAID”.
3. After breaking the RAID, both drives should contain the same data and be usable independently.
4. If needed, format one of the drives to use it separately.
5. Use the drives in both Windows and Linux, where they will show as non-RAID drives.

This process should not erase your data, but always back up before proceeding.

[federgejzla]

I  don't have any of these. For illustration, the menu options do I see are:

• Create
• Transform
• Check Consistency
  • Start
  • Stop (disabled)
• Background Array Scan
  • Start
  • Stop (disabled)
• Modify Cache Settings
  • No Cache
  • Read Cache
  • Write Back Cache
  • Read + Write Back Cache
• Task (disabled)
• Name
• Hide
• Identify Array
• Prepare To Remove
• Remove Spares (disabled)
• Delete
• Delete Multiple Arrays
• Secure Erase