Breaking RAID 1 (and retaining disk's data)

[BillH2]

I have a Dell Precision 3620 Tower Desktop that is running WIN 10 Pro that came configured with RAID 1 (Mirror).  I no longer have the need to run RAID 1 and would like to break the RAID and migrate the current drive (OS, applications, and data) to a single Samsung SSD drive. (I have been told by Samsung that I need to break the RAID before I can clone the original boot drive onto the SSD.)

I have been unable to get a clear understanding on how I might break the RAID without losing data having talked with Dell Pro Support, having reached out to the Dell Community, and looking through posts on Intel’s Product Support Forums.  The most relevant Intel forum posts that generally address this topic date back to February 2014 and May 2010, respectively.  There appears to be conflicting views on whether or not one can break the RAID 1 without losing data.  Some say that data is lost when breaking RAID 0 (striping) which is understandable, but not with RAID 1.  Others say that data would be lost if breaking either RAID 0 or 1.  I am hoping that someone in this community might help me to clarify this point and ideally suggest the steps that I would need to take to accomplish my goal.  Many thanks in advance for your help.

[n_scott_pearson · Accepted solution]

At BIOS POST, press CTRL-I to invoke the RST Option ROM program. From there, you can remove the RAID array and return the drives to standalone status.

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[BillH2]

Thanks for the prompt reply and recommended procedure to break the RAID array.  Is there any risk of losing data with this process as has been warned by others?  I presume that once the array hard drives are in standalone status that one of the drive will become the boot drive and that the other drive could be made into a spare drive (say for example for data backup).  Would that hard drive need to be reformatted to be non-bootable for that use?  Thanks ...

[AndrewG_Intel]

Hello @BillH2

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities.

We hope that the assistance provided by the community has been helpful.

It is worth mentioning that when using Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST) or Intel® Rapid Storage Technology enterprise (Intel® RSTe) on a third-party system with a Server-based Chipset, the support for these scenarios should be through the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM).

Reviewing Dell's documentation, we noticed that the Dell Precision 3620 Tower Desktop comes with an Intel® C236 Chipset, this is a Server-based Chipset (noted in Intel® Product Specifications as "Vertical Segment: Server"), therefore, Intel® Customer Support doesn't provide support for this type of requests. In case you need additional assistance, we kindly recommend addressing these inquiries to your OEM DELL* which is the correct channel of support.

Or perhaps fellow community members want to jump in and participate... Therefore, we encourage all the peers viewing this thread that if they have any details or information about this topic to please post all the feedback.

Having said that, we will proceed to close this now from our side but we will leave the thread open in case other users want to participate.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[BillH2]

Hello Andrew G_Intel -

Many thanks to the Intel community, and in particular, to n_scott_pearson for his suggestion.  I had hoped that he would have replied to my follow-up query before closing this post out.  I now understand and appreciate your policy that my post should have been directed to Dell as the OEM for my computer.  In fact, I began with the Dell Support Community and the Dell Pro Support team, neither of whom could provide me with a definitive guidance on how to accomplish the breaking of RAID 1 without data lost.  I turned to the Intel Community to see if someone might be able to help me there.  Again thank for your community's help and I understand that my post will be closed on your end.

[n_scott_pearson]

Sorry I missed your second post. My response is No, there is always a chance of data loss. You should always have an external backup before making any changes to the RAID structures.
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[BillH2]

Hello n_scott_pearson -

Many thanks for your follow-up reply!  I will try your proposed solution. Cheers ...