Hi, I have a software RAID 5 setup on 4 x SATA disks attached to a Zotac MB and the MB has started failing. I know I should have done hardware, but after purchasing Server 2008, budget didn't allow at the time. My OS is installed on a seperate HDD (through PCIe SATA card) and I'm planning on changing the mainboard for an Intel one and my question is.... As it's software RAID, when I transfer the RAID to the Intel board, would it be a simple case of activating and resyncing the RAID? Many thanks in advance.

I have a software RAID 5 setup on 4 x SATA disks attached to a Zotac MB and the MB has started failing. I know I should have done hardware, but after purchasing Server 2008, budget didn't allow at the time. My OS is installed on a seperate HDD (through PCIe SATA card) and I'm planning on changing the mainboard for an Intel one and my question is.... As it's software RAID, when I transfer the RAID to the Intel board, would it be a simple case of activating and resyncing the RAID? I don't think it's the case; if I'm not wrong, Zotac boards use JMicron controllers not Intel (ICHxR) ones, so you'll need to rebuild the whole array and then copy over the data; a possible path may be imaging the volumes from the current machine and then restoring the image(s) on the new one or either turning the current machine into a VM image and then running it over the new h/w so making the underlying RAID hardware totally transparent That said, when it comes to server h/w I think that investing some money into a decent RAID board (e.g. an Adaptec one) would be a good idea, not only you'll may then pick an additional board to keep it around in case the running one will fail, but you'll gain some speed since onboard controllers use CPU cycles for their tasks where a decent controller board will have its own "onboard CPU" (and cache) so allowing to offload all the storage tasks and to obtain better throughput

Thanks for the reply ObiWan..... I was hoping it would be a different answer but hey ho, I had to cut corners. If I can't just plug the drives in, I may as well do what I intended in the first place and purchase a proper RAID controller. Thanks again for your comprehensive answer!

Thanks for the reply ObiWan..... I was hoping it would be a different answer but hey ho, I had to cut corners. If I can't just plug the drives in, I may as well do what I intended in the first place and purchase a proper RAID controller. Thanks again for your comprehensive answer! You're welcome; the "problem" (if we want to call it so) is that most manufacturers use their own "disk writing scheme" so a RAID-5 built using a given controller won't, in general, be compatible/recognized from a different controller not to say that I experienced cases in which, a controller of the same brand/model but with a different revision level wasn't compatible as a drop-in replacement <sigh> That said, and getting back to controller cards vs onboard chipsets (e.g. Intel or AMD or similar "softraid" stuff), the second ones usually have no "cache" nor any dedicated "CPU" so they rely on the main CPU horsepower for their tasks (for example, a RAID-5 array will require parity checksum calculations) which in turn means that such an approach will penalize the throughput of the storage subsystem ... and the overall performance of the whole system; on the other hand, a dedicated controller card, with its own CPU and cache will allow offloading all the storage tasks and help speeding things up Getting to RAID, as I wrote, I prefer RAID-10 (not to be confused with RAID 0+1) over RAID-5 since the level 10 offers better performance and, at the same time a superior fault-tolerance than RAID-5 (a RAID-10 array can loose up to two HDDs as long as they belong to two different sub-arrays); for more infos about raid-10 please refer to this document which should help you understanding how it works; in particular, this section shows how the RAID-10 works As for your initial request, if you feel adventurous, you may try using some "imaging" program on your current array to generate an image of the volumes which you may then restore after recreating the RAID array on your new board but keep in mind that it may be risky business since the imaging app MUST be able to recognize both RAID arrays to be able to back-up and then restore the image(s)

That said, when it comes to server h/w I think that investing some money into a decent RAID board (e.g. an Adaptec one) would be a good idea, not only you'll may then pick an additional board to Just in case, this critter http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816103228&cm_re=adaptec_2405q--16-103-228--Product comes for around 400$ and is the "entry level" card for the Adaptec maxcache series of controllers http://www.adaptec.com/en-us/products/controllers/hardware/ by the way there are other brands/models, the above is just to give you an idea about the kind of cards you may find around