Partition resizing in Vista

[ddrueding]

I had no idea a RAID-5 array could be this fast.

Currently I have the following in my system:

(Driven off the onboard SATA RAID controller)
2x 74GB Raptors in RAID-0 for the OS

(Off the 3Ware 9650SE-16ML)
3x 36GB Raptors in RAID-0 for games
6x 750GB Seagate in RAID-5 for data

Each of these arrays is a single partition.

What I didn't expect is that the RAID-5 is just as fast (STR) as the raptors, and the seek time difference is negligible. With that out of the way, it's time to get those noisy heaters out of my box. What I want to do now is create a ~300GB partition at the front of the RAID-5 array and install the OS/Games there.

Question #1:
What do you think my odds are of getting the same OS install to boot successfully from the new controller? Any tips? Things I'm likely to forget?



*As an interesting side note, 300GB works out to be only the first 12.5% of each drive. That is some serious short-stroking

TIA

 

[mubs]

Wouldn't there be a performance hit from the reduced number of spindles?

 

[MaxBurn]

What about your write speeds? Thats where RAID5 really falls down, I would expect read to be at least as good as single drive etc.

Only thing I can think of is you will need the F6 driver to get the OS on there and eventually the 3DM suite for windows. Tell the BIOS you want to boot from SCSI or PCI device.

 

[Bozo]

The 3Ware drivers are already installed on the OS. You might be able to clone the OS and install it on the new partition, set the BIOS to boot from the 3Ware (physically disconnect all the other drives not invovled in the boot process) and everything might work.

Bozo :joker:

 

[ddrueding]

What about your write speeds? Thats where RAID5 really falls down, I would expect read to be at least as good as single drive etc.

Speeds to the array in Vista:

Write: 140MB/s
Read: 170MB/s

Honestly good enough for my personal use and not far from the RAID-0 of raptors (150MB/s Write, 170MB/s Read)

Wouldn't there be a performance hit from the reduced number of spindles?

There would be, except that I am just not that much of a multi-tasker. Lately I've been running my video compression stuff at night, so the most it usually has to deal with is streaming MP3s and an AVI while I'm surfing. Not a heavy load, really.

The 3Ware drivers are already installed on the OS. You might be able to clone the OS and install it on the new partition, set the BIOS to boot from the 3Ware (physically disconnect all the other drives not involved in the boot process) and everything might work.

Awesome. This is what I wanted to hear. I have Acronis 10 home installed on this machine (it supports Vista very well), so I'll use it to make the swap.

On to question #2:

I tried to use the "shrink partition" wizard in disk management to make the space on the drive, but it would only let me shrink it by 8MB (there is presently ~470GB available. Further, I think the free space would be at the end of the drive, and I need it in front.

What is the new "Partition Magic"? I'd like to keep my data, just move it over a few couple hundred GB.

TIA