Vista - Disk Management Question re converting to dynamic disks

I have two physical hard drives on my computer. Both are approximately 238
GB. I am using them as a RAID 0 array (i.e. striped). Both are basic disks
with a single primary partition on each drive.

Here is my question. Can I convert both drives to dynamic disks and then
combine them (so that I get one 465 GB dynamic drive) without disrupting the
performance gains from the RAID 0 array? If I do this, will I take a
performance hit on the HD?

TIA,
Ken

All in all, it's a bad deal! You'd not only lose the benefits of the RAID-0
performance, but you'd get a performance penalty from the spanned drive
overhead.

If those are the only 2 drives on your machine, you'd also have the problem
that dynamic drives which contain the system partition or the boot partition,
cannot be spanned.

"Ken Gardner" wrote:

> I have two physical hard drives on my computer. Both are approximately 238
> GB. I am using them as a RAID 0 array (i.e. striped). Both are basic disks
> with a single primary partition on each drive.
>
> Here is my question. Can I convert both drives to dynamic disks and then
> combine them (so that I get one 465 GB dynamic drive) without disrupting the
> performance gains from the RAID 0 array? If I do this, will I take a
> performance hit on the HD?
>
> TIA,
> Ken
>

"cvp" <cvp@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>> I have two physical hard drives on my computer. Both are approximately
>> 238
>> GB. I am using them as a RAID 0 array (i.e. striped). Both are basic
>> disks
>> with a single primary partition on each drive.
>>
>> Here is my question. Can I convert both drives to dynamic disks and then
>> combine them (so that I get one 465 GB dynamic drive) without disrupting
>> the
>> performance gains from the RAID 0 array? If I do this, will I take a
>> performance hit on the HD?

> All in all, it's a bad deal! You'd not only lose the benefits of the
> RAID-0
> performance, but you'd get a performance penalty from the spanned drive
> overhead.
>
> If those are the only 2 drives on your machine, you'd also have the
> problem
> that dynamic drives which contain the system partition or the boot
> partition,
> cannot be spanned.

It turns out that I cannot do it anyway. Disk Management simply doesn't
give me the option of converting to dynamic disks. I am virtually 100%
certain that this has to do with pre-existing RAID-0 array. I guess that I
can wipe both drives, undo the RAID thingie, reinstall everything, convert
the disks to dynamic....nah, I think my sock drawer needs much more urgent
attention.

Thanks
Ken

Ken,

I'm not sure I fully understand your situation and the thing that confuses
me most is this: Dynamic disks is basically software RAID technology so why
move to software RAID if you have hardware RAID already?..

And if you already have two 200 GB disks in RAID 0 configuration, operating
system should see it as a single 400 GB volume so I'm not sure what are you
talking about here.

--
Alexander Suhovey

"Ken Gardner" <kesgardner@charter.net> wrote in message
news:9B380FD1-A66C-4E32-B02D-73AB4DB58A52@microsoft.com...
> "cvp" <cvp@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
>>> I have two physical hard drives on my computer. Both are approximately
>>> 238
>>> GB. I am using them as a RAID 0 array (i.e. striped). Both are basic
>>> disks
>>> with a single primary partition on each drive.
>>>
>>> Here is my question. Can I convert both drives to dynamic disks and
>>> then
>>> combine them (so that I get one 465 GB dynamic drive) without disrupting
>>> the
>>> performance gains from the RAID 0 array? If I do this, will I take a
>>> performance hit on the HD?
>
>> All in all, it's a bad deal! You'd not only lose the benefits of the
>> RAID-0
>> performance, but you'd get a performance penalty from the spanned drive
>> overhead.
>>
>> If those are the only 2 drives on your machine, you'd also have the
>> problem
>> that dynamic drives which contain the system partition or the boot
>> partition,
>> cannot be spanned.
>
> It turns out that I cannot do it anyway. Disk Management simply doesn't
> give me the option of converting to dynamic disks. I am virtually 100%
> certain that this has to do with pre-existing RAID-0 array. I guess that
> I can wipe both drives, undo the RAID thingie, reinstall everything,
> convert the disks to dynamic....nah, I think my sock drawer needs much
> more urgent attention.
>
> Thanks
> Ken
>
>

"Alexander Suhovey" <asuhovey@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:ufRYyy2SHHA.3316@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Ken,
>
> I'm not sure I fully understand your situation and the thing that confuses
> me most is this: Dynamic disks is basically software RAID technology so
> why move to software RAID if you have hardware RAID already?..
>
> And if you already have two 200 GB disks in RAID 0 configuration,
> operating system should see it as a single 400 GB volume so I'm not sure
> what are you talking about here.
>
> --
> Alexander Suhovey
>
> "Ken Gardner" <kesgardner@charter.net> wrote in message
> news:9B380FD1-A66C-4E32-B02D-73AB4DB58A52@microsoft.com...
>> "cvp" <cvp@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> I have two physical hard drives on my computer. Both are approximately
>>>> 238
>>>> GB. I am using them as a RAID 0 array (i.e. striped). Both are basic
>>>> disks
>>>> with a single primary partition on each drive.
>>>>
>>>> Here is my question. Can I convert both drives to dynamic disks and
>>>> then
>>>> combine them (so that I get one 465 GB dynamic drive) without
>>>> disrupting the
>>>> performance gains from the RAID 0 array? If I do this, will I take a
>>>> performance hit on the HD?
>>
>>> All in all, it's a bad deal! You'd not only lose the benefits of the
>>> RAID-0
>>> performance, but you'd get a performance penalty from the spanned drive
>>> overhead.
>>>
>>> If those are the only 2 drives on your machine, you'd also have the
>>> problem
>>> that dynamic drives which contain the system partition or the boot
>>> partition,
>>> cannot be spanned.
>>
>> It turns out that I cannot do it anyway. Disk Management simply doesn't
>> give me the option of converting to dynamic disks. I am virtually 100%
>> certain that this has to do with pre-existing RAID-0 array. I guess that
>> I can wipe both drives, undo the RAID thingie, reinstall everything,
>> convert the disks to dynamic....nah, I think my sock drawer needs much
>> more urgent attention.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Ken
>>
>>
>

"Alexander Suhovey" <asuhovey@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure I fully understand your situation and the thing that confuses
> me most is this: Dynamic disks is basically software RAID technology so
> why move to software RAID if you have hardware RAID already?..

That's an excellent question. Here's the answer. When an Intel program
created the RAID 0 array, it did so in two partitions of 238 GB each (C
drive and D drive). I would like to know if I can change this so that the
system sees one C partition of 465 GB.

> And if you already have two 200 GB disks in RAID 0 configuration,
> operating system should see it as a single 400 GB volume so I'm not sure
> what are you talking about here.

On Disk Manager, the two physical drives show up as Disk 0 with two
partitions. These are basic disks. Can you extend the partition of a basic
disk in Vista? If so, I might solve my problem by deleting the D partition
and then extending the C partition.

Ken
--

"Ken Gardner" wrote:

> On Disk Manager, the two physical drives show up as Disk 0 with two
> partitions. These are basic disks. Can you extend the partition of a
> basic disk in Vista? If so, I might solve my problem by deleting the D
> partition and then extending the C partition.

I just answered my own question. Yes I can! Vista is way cool.

Ken

Glad you solved it.

--
Alexander Suhovey

"Ken Gardner" <kesgardner@charter.net> wrote in message
news:54851695-690F-46D3-BF9D-DDD085E74F64@microsoft.com...
> "Ken Gardner" wrote:
>
>> On Disk Manager, the two physical drives show up as Disk 0 with two
>> partitions. These are basic disks. Can you extend the partition of a
>> basic disk in Vista? If so, I might solve my problem by deleting the D
>> partition and then extending the C partition.
>
> I just answered my own question. Yes I can! Vista is way cool.
>
> Ken
>
>

"Alexander Suhovey" <asuhovey@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> On Disk Manager, the two physical drives show up as Disk 0 with two
>>> partitions. These are basic disks. Can you extend the partition of a
>>> basic disk in Vista? If so, I might solve my problem by deleting the D
>>> partition and then extending the C partition.

>> I just answered my own question. Yes I can! Vista is way cool.

Well, I have you to thank for it. . When you suggested that my setup was
a hardware version of dynamic disks so why mess with it, the solution
presented itself. It took me all of 3 minutes.

Ken