Setting up a RAID 0 from an existing Windows 7 Install

Nomad8459 · 01 Apr 2012

I have a M4N98TD, this has a Nvidia 980A chipset.

As part of the chipset driver installation, it also installed the RAID and SATA drivers that Nvidia provides.

I have a 300GB HDD on the primary IDE channel although I currently boot from one of my SATA hdd's.

How would I go about transferring my OS to a RAID 0?

Would it be possible to just system image my current OS onto the IDE drive and then format my two SATA hdd's, enable RAID in BIOS and then use Seagate Disc Wizard to install the system image onto the RAID 0?

Is seagate disc wizard capable of transferring to a RAID drive??

Have the RAID drivers definitely been installed with the Chipset drivers and will Windows recognise the RAID array?

Have heard that you have to set up a boot partition the same size as the image on the RAID 0, would it then be possible to expand that to use the entire RAID partition.

I have been looking into SSD but I have all my programs on my SATA HDD so the drive has about 249GB of data on it, that would need a big SSD!!

Other than that any tips on how I can get an SSD of a small size to still run all the currently installed software without having to reinstall it all?

Any advice appreciated..

Nomad8459 · 01 Apr 2012

I can see from other threads that RAID is not considered a good option any more so probably won't get any answers on here.

DeaconFrost · 02 Apr 2012

There's a chance you could run sysprep, then create an image, then lay the image down after you create the array. That might work, but you would do all of that for very little to no gain, plus likely higher seek times. RAID0 is all hype. That's been proven 5-6 years ago, and still remains true.

If you want real performance, you are on the right track with an SSD. 249 GB of programs is a massive amount. Are you sure that isn't including data files as well, like docs, pictures, music, etc? If not, you always would have the option of installing some apps on a second drive, such as a much larger HDD. I had to do this with a 60 GB SSD, then a 128 GB SSD. Now that I have a 240 GB, I have plenty of space for all of my apps and games.

Nomad8459 · 02 Apr 2012

There are a lot of games installed as well, some of these I guess I could uninstall, its just that some of the software I no longer have the product keys for, I have started another post after reading on here about RAID 0, on how to get a decent SSD install, so I definitely think that is the way forward.

It sounds like RAID 0 can be a real headache!

I am currently thinking to really pair down the install by removing everything that can be reinstalled and then doing a disc image. I have got it down already to 194GB, that's without removing games.

All my music and pictures are on my IDE drive, about another 250gb there.

If i can get it to 128Gb it may just be doable, I can get a 128Gb for about £100 GBP or so.

essenbe · 02 Apr 2012

I understand about your games, if you can find the product keys, all games and user files can be installed on another drive. Windows 7 takes up about 17GB. Your programs don't take as much space as you think. I have run a decent OS from a 64GB SSD with no problems and space to spare. Games, user files and some rarely used programs installed on another drive. Set up right, you should have no problems with an SSD, and I'm certain you will be thankful you made the change.