Question 1

I have Win 7 system with a 1 TB drive.  Can I use this product to add another 1 TB drive and setup in a RAID 1 array without erasing my current drive?

Accepted Answer

Thank you for your question.  There are a couple approaches to that.  I'd like to point out first this card is not recommended by the manufacturer to be used for the OS drive as it is a software RAID card.  However, I have used it as an OS drive without issue.  If you want to build a RAID using your current OS I highly suggest buying a 3rd harddrive so you can create the RAID then use a copy utility such as Symantec Ghost to copy from your OS drive onto the RAID.  You will need to install the RAID card driver prior to doing the copy.  Simply install the RAID card using your current OS drive and install the driver.  If you do not pre-install the RAID card driver the system will give you a BSOD at boot.  If you cannot purchase a 3rd harddrive, again, you will need to install the RAID card driver onto your current OS, copy from your OS drive to another harddrive (be sure to verify you can boot from the newly copied harddrive prior to erasing your current OS harddrive), create the RAID which will erase your current OS drive, then copy from the newly copied OS drive to the RAID using a copy utility such as Symantec Ghost.  There is no way to create a RAID with your current harddrive by simply adding the drive, UNLESS, your current OS drive is currently part of a RAID and you are replacing a harddrive within the array.  In that case the RAID will simply build onto the newly added harddrive.

Question 2

Rebuilding a pc.  The mobo SATA ports are bad so I need a controller card like this as a work around.  No OS is installed yet.  Going to use Ubuntu 14.04.  Will this be functional for OS install on a bootable drive (Seagate 320gb)?

Accepted Answer

I think that would depend on whether or not there's a driver for it that will work with Ubuntu.  Ubuntu is also a Linux-based OS, so if there's a Linux driver for it, I imagine it should work.  You should check the specs on this card and see if there's a Linux driver included on the CD.

Question 3

Hi, is this card has GUI for Win 7 64 bit, so you can see raid config?

Accepted Answer

There is no GUI that can be accessed through Windows, but there is a configuration tool that is accessed during boot up using Crtl+S.

Question 4

I used this to create a RAID 0 on 2 x 2tb WD Red drives (data, not for boot) and it seems I can only Use MBR - and I cannot convert to GPT, so I have 2 GB available and 2 GB thats un-partition-able on my 4 tb RAID 0.

Is it possible to be able to use all 4TB?

I'm using Windows 7.

Thank you for your time!

Accepted Answer

you should be able to delete the partition then recreate it with full space in disk management.

Question 5

My current motherboard has 3 occupied SATA connectors. The primary drive is IDE and is failing. Can I use this card to connect a new SATA drive as the primary? I don't need any RAID options, just converting the primary drive from IDE to SATA. CentOS operating system.

Accepted Answer

Yes you can.  You'd have to go into your BIOS and select the card as the primary boot device.

Question 6

can this be used in a SFF pc?

Accepted Answer

It depends... I don't recall if it had the low form factor bracket since I used it to add another pair of SATA II internal ports for a Dell Optiplex 780 Tower.  The other problem is with most SFF PCs, they don't have a physical slot for you to put another hard drive in, like with the SFF Optiplex(es).  Nor do the PSUs have another SATA power lead for adding additional drives.  If you had the physical space to mount another drive, the SATA power connector and the low profile bracket, then yes.  Sorry for not a solid being able to supply a straight yes or no answer...

Questions & Answers