Is it possible to partition RAID in a safe and easy way?

Why do Windows server users need to partition RAID? Generally speaking, they need to partition RAID regularly in order to optimize the usage of their server computers. A typical example is the partition on the hardware RAID is running out of space. You may want to rebuild the hardware RAID with a larger hard disk. Then, you need to backup the data to another place, rebuild the hardware RAID and restore the data again. What a time-consuming task! And you might lose your valued data in this process.

Is it possible to partition RAID in a safe and easy way? The answer is yes and this article will introduce a great solution to partition RAID without data loss.

RAID Is Commonly Used on Windows server

When you are looking for a dedicated server for your company, you may select different hardware for it. One of the most important things (especially for database driven websites) is to choose fast and reliable storage system. And RAID is preferred by Windows server users.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, which is a technology that employs the simultaneous use of two or more hard disk drives to achieve greater levels of performance, reliability, and/or larger data volume sizes. When several physical disks are set up to use RAID technology, they are said to be in a RAID array which distributes data among several disks. Meanwhile, the array is seen as one single disk by the users and Operating System.

RAID makes use of two or more hard drives in order to improve performance, reliability or create larger data volumes. The former is achieved through striping, whereby data is split and written across multiple drives to increase throughput, and reliability can be improved by introducing redundancy. An example of this is a mirrored RAID array, whereby data is written to more than one disk so that in the event of a single disk failure, an exact copy of the original data still remains.

Usually, there are 7 most commonly used RAID levels as follows:

Level

Description

Minimum
No. of disks

Image

RAID 0

Striped set without parity/ [Non-Redundant Array].

2

RAID0

RAID 1

Mirrored set without parity.

2

RAID1

RAID 2

Redundancy through Hamming code.

3

RAID2

RAID 3

Striped set with dedicated parity/Bit interleaved parity.

3

RAID3

RAID 4

Block level parity.

3

RAID4

RAID 5

Striped set with distributed parity.

3

RAID5

RAID 6

Striped set with dual distributed parity.

4

RAID6

RAID is really used to its full potential in emergency services and business where data reliability and performance are essential. Meanwhile, partitioning RAID to maximize its performance as well as optimize data reliability.

Partition RAID with reliable RAID partitioning software

Now that it is possible to partition RAID, you may want to know the safest and easiest way to partition RAID on your server computer. Taking easy operation and data security into consideration, you need a reliable third-party RAID partitioning tool. Compatible with all levels of hardware RAID, EaseUS Partition Master Server Edition can help you partition RAID on Windows Server 2000/2003/2008 and Non-Server 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7 32 and 64 bit systems.

RAID partition manager software

Now, we'd like to talk about how to deal with the case mentioned at the beginning of this article, that is, use EaseUS Partition Master Server Edition to extend the hardware RAID which is out of space without any data loss.

Firstly, insert a new hard disk to the existing hardware RAID and organize this RAID using RAID controller. Then you can have some unallocated space on this RAID.

The following step is to launch EaseUS Partition Master Server Edition and use its built-in resize and move function to extend this RAID with the unallocated space.

1. Launch EaseUS Partition Master Server Edition.

2. Choose the partition you want to extend, right click it and select "Resize/Move partition", drag the partition handle rightwards to the size you want.

Extend partition

3. Don't forget to click Apply.

Free download EaseUS Partition Master Server Edition to partition RAID on your server computer.

 

Do not forget to back up your server in case of disasters! EaseUS Todo Backup Server, the comprehensive server backup & recovery software, will protect your business from disasters and ensure business continuity.

  • Fast and easily back up operating system and all important files.
  • Advanced backup scheduler and incremental backups.
  • Recover to dissimilar hardware, WinPE bootable disk and much more.

Read MoreFree Trial

 

Related Articles:

Feedback on this article:

Thanks for visiting EaseUS, please let us know how we can improve this article or make it more useful to you. Should you need technical support please feel free to contact support@partition-tool.com.

1. Did this article help you?

Yes No Somewhat

2. What can we do to improve this article?

To protect your privacy, do not include your contact information in the feedback.

Privacy Policy | License | Legal Counsel | Sitemap

Copyright © 2005-2012 CHENGDU Yiwo® Tech Development Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

Partition Magic ® is a registered trademark of Symantec Corporation.