I currently have 2 Seagate 300 G drives in RAID 1. I have a chance to get 2 more identical drives. What I am considering is going to a RAID 10 setup (yea, I'm odd, think RAID is sexy :) ).

I think I can do this: Create a Ghost 12 image of the current RAID 1 setup, add the 2 new drives and set all 4 up as RAID 10 array (thereby trashing all data), then Ghost the image created off the RAID 1 array onto the new RAID 10 array?

OS is XP Pro SP2 32 bit.

That will work, right?

Thanks!

wreckwriter wrote on Apr 1^st, 2008 at 10:25pm:

That will work, right?

Hehe, made me chuckle. I don't know anyone that's ever done it, but we should try to see if there are any reasons *why* it might NOT.

MrMagoo doesn't do Windows or Ghost, but he knows a lot about RAID. I'd be interested to see what he had to say. You should PM him and ask him to look at your thread.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?action=viewprofile;username=526D527E7870701F0

I'd also ask Nigel Bree what he thinks. He's a Ghost developer.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?action=viewprofile;username=212D3D2A2A4F0

Brian also has lots of experience with unconventional configurations.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?action=viewprofile;username=5D6D767E7140541F0

I am totally interested to see if it would work. But if it doesn't that would suk. So we should brainstorm first.

Pleonasm might have some insight into the capabilities of ShadowProtect (his new Cloning prgm of choice).

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?action=viewprofile;username=4F737A70717E6C721F0

Can't hurt to ask. Tell them I asked for their opinion. This is cool stuff, so they will be happy to weigh in.

Hardware support will factor in. What controller are you using? Or are you software-RAID via O/S? That's a serious performance hit, no?

How badly would it suk if you lost everything? You could always restore back to RAID-1, right? If the clone falters...

Will all drives be identical? (firmware rev) That usually makes it a little easier.

Would be easy to say, "Yeah, it *should* work," then see if it works.

I don't have any experience myself with using RAID and Ghost.  I have read that it doesn't cause a problem with the backup, but to restore, you must disable the raid, perform the image restore, and then re-build the raid.  (not sure if this is true or not to be honest.)

However, I found this KB article from Symantec which says RAID is not supported at least for older versions of Ghost:

Supported RAID levels for Norton Save & Restore and Norton Ghost


Quote:

Supported RAID levels  Norton Save & Restore and Norton Ghost 10.0 support the following hardware RAID levels: RAID level 0 RAID level 1 RAID level 5 Norton Ghost 9.0 supports the following hardware RAID levels: RAID level 0 RAID level 5 Norton Save & Restore and Norton Ghost 10.0/9.0 do not support any software RAID levels or nested RAID levels, such as RAID level 0+1.

That is bad news but I am certainly glad I asked before I ordered the extra drives. Rather than mess with it I think I best just stick with RAID 1. Thanks again guys, your Ghostly knowledge continues to shine!

I wouldn't give up yet without hearing from some of the others on this board.  The Symantec article seems kind of old, so I don't know if it applies to Ghost 12 or Ghost 14.

Why don't you try the free LiveChat from Symantec and see what they say?  I bet everyone else is interested also.

http://www.symantec.com/norton/support/productdetail/contact_ts.jsp?pvid=nghost_12

I'm not able to do the chat thing from work, maybe will try tonight. I cannot find anything saying that Ghost will support anything other than RAID 0 and 1.

Wreckwriter, I don’t know the answer myself, but I recommend that you post your question on the StorageCraft Forum, to learn if the ShadowProtect Desktop image backup utility will meet your needs.  Please reply here, to share whatever you may learn.

Wreckwriter, please review and monitor this thread:  Can SPD Restore to RAID 0+1 Config From RAID JOD Based Image?

Pleonasm wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2008 at 1:17pm:

Wreckwriter, please review and monitor this thread

Pleonasm,

What's the tech support response turn-around time for ShadowProtect supposed to be?

I noticed this SP RAID question was opened 2 weeks ago, and no one has answered yet???

I thought you said their tech support was fantastic?

John, the lack of a response to the post at the StorageCraft forum is surprising.  I haven’t followed-up on this, because it is only of ‘academic’ interest to me at this time.

However, a better avenue for technical support is to send an email to support@storagecraft.com — or just pick up the phone and call them at 801-545-4700:  you’ll be connected to a knowledgable member of their staff, not an outsourced agent in a foreign land.  I encourage you to give it a try and report back your experiences!

Wreckwriter, as noted in this thread "Can SPD Restore to RAID 0+1 Config From RAID JOD Based Image", the answer is "yes":  ShadowProtect Desktop will work with a RAID 1+0 configuration.