Resize RAID 5 without Data Loss

Need to resize RAID 5? If so, you might want to know the reliable way to resize RAID 5 without destroying any data. Then please jump to the end of this article and you will find the easiest and safest solution to resize RAID 5. If you would like to get better understanding of RAID 5 before partitioning RAID 5, this article will also provide the necessary information.

Brief Introduction of RAID

Before introducing RAID 5, we should know what is RAID.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks which is the organization of multiple disks into a large, high performance logical disk. Disk arrays stripe data across multiple disks and access them in parallel to achieve higher data transfer rates on large data accesses and higher I/O rates on small data accesses.

According to various combinations of approaches giving different levels of protection against data loss, capacity, and speed, several levels of RAID are available, including RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 2, RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 5 and RAID 10 (1+0), etc.

What Is RAID 5?

As one of the most popular RAID levels, RAID 5 stripes both data and parity information across three or more drives. It is similar to RAID 4 except that it exchanges the dedicated parity drive for a distributed parity algorithm, writing data and parity blocks across all the drives in the array.

This removes the "bottleneck" that the dedicated parity drive represents, improving writing performance slightly and allowing somewhat better parallelism in a multiple-transaction environment, though the overhead necessary in dealing with the parity continues to bog down writes. Fault tolerance is maintained by ensuring that the parity information for any given block of data is placed on a drive separate from those used to store the data itself. The performance of a RAID 5 array can be "adjusted" by trying different stripe sizes until one is found that is well-matched to the application being used.

Generally speaking, RAID 5 needs some powerful logic processing capabilities to control the simultaneous operation of several hard disks and to write data and parity information across all disks in the stripe set. The latter function does not require a particularly complex architecture, but as transfer rates increase, the process of writing parity data on the fly increases CPU overhead accordingly.

The following image can visually depict RAID 5:

Why Do We Need to Resize RAID 5?

Considering both price and reliability, RAID 5 is one of the most popular RAID level and is more preferred by Windows Server users. To maximize the performance of server computers, IT administrators need to repartition RAID 5 regularly, especially to resize RAID 5 without data loss.

Here's a typical example.

I have a SBS2003 standard server. My system partition C: drive is run out of place on the created RAID 5? Do I need to recreate a RAID 5?

Actually, the best solution under this condition is to resize RAID 5 instead of recreating a RAID 5.

How to Resize RAID 5 without Losing Data?

Easy operation and data security are undoubtedly the key factors that IT administrators concern about when resizing RAID 5. Any unsuitable operations might destroy the valued data and files on the server computers. Thus reliable third-party RAID partitioning software is needed, such as EASEUS Partition Master Server Edition.

EASEUS Partition Master Server Edition is compatible with Windows Server 2000/2003/2008 and desktop 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7 32 and 64 bit systems. And all levels of hardware RAID are supported. This powerful server partition software allows you to perform basic and advanced partition operations on your RAID partitions without data loss, including: Resize and Move partitions, Copy partition, Copy disk, Format partitions, Convert partitions, Explore partitions, etc.

Among these features, RAID resizing utility is highly recommended since you can resize RAID (RAID 5, RAID 0, RAID 1, etc) without any data loss. Here's an example to resize RAID 5 partition with this RAID partitioning software.

Firstly, launch EASEUS Partition Master Server Edition. Select the RAID 5 partition to be resized. Then right click it and choose "Resize / Move".

Then you can resize RAID 5 partition without data loss by dragging the handle to the partition size you want. Don't forget to apply the operation.

Download this RAID (RAID 5) partitioning software to resize RAID 5 without data loss.

For better data security, you may also use the free backup software - EASEUS Todo Backup, which will help you a lot. It provides easy-to-use interface to backup and restore your system, disk and partition within minutes.

Related Articles:

• Partition RAID 5 in Windows Server 2003
• How to Resize a Raid Partition?
• Is It Possible to Partition RAID?
• Easiest and Safest Solution to Repartition RAID 5 on Windows Server