Clone OW from HW RAID0 to Intel RST RAID0 on M2. NVMe

[Buck]

I need to clone an OS install from a MegaRAID 9260-8i RAID controller RAID0 SSD volume 2XEVO 860 1TB), to an Intel RST RAID0 on 2x1TB m2. NVMe.

I can't do this from Windows because when you enable Intel RST, CSM (Compatibility Support Mode), which is required for Legacy OPROM (Option ROM), is automatically disabled, rendering the RAID controller unbootable.

So my best choice is most likely a standalone clone solution like Clonezilla, which is my understand, does support HW raid (I assume it contains the linux mega_raid driver).

Does anyone have any experience doing this, and if so, what was your results?
Do you have any other suggestions for good free cloning software?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Get the used space on the old raid config to be smaller then approx 900gb. Then clone to a single 1tb M2 ssd.

You shouldn't use raid on ssds as it disables TRIM, which is vital for their health over time. And with the speeds of nvme, you definitely won't have any need for raid-0

[xSOSxHawkens]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Bad 💀 Motha:

Get the used space on the old raid config to be smaller then approx 900gb. Then clone to a single 1tb M2 ssd.

You shouldn't use raid on ssds as it disables TRIM, which is vital for their health over time. And with the speeds of nvme, you definitely won't have any need for raid-0

TRIM still works on multiple levels. Not to mention that Windows 10 automatically detects RAID arrays (regardless of medium used) as SSD type disks from a TRIM/Defrag managment view.

Though I agree that there is little reasonble cause to RAID nvme's specially with how fast Gen 4 drives can be, though there is still some arguments if one has an actual use for the speeds (or redundancy offered).

As for cloning, use something like Acronis or similar in a boot time envrioment and make sure your used data space on the source is less than the available free on the target and just clone it

[Buck]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Bad 💀 Motha:

Get the used space on the old raid config to be smaller then approx 900gb. Then clone to a single 1tb M2 ssd.

You shouldn't use raid on ssds as it disables TRIM, which is vital for their health over time. And with the speeds of nvme, you definitely won't have any need for raid-0

TRIM does still work in RAID volumes, I did consider that when I built them because I knew it depended on the Hardware/software config. I confirmed with the HW RAID support (Broadcom), and also the Dev engineers at my former employer (Oracle. I was Hardware analysis), but I felt that even if it didn't work, because these volumes weren't going to be written/rewritten frequently that it would be worth the trade off for the improvements in read speed, which is what I was a looking for.


I did get the RAID EFI and RST cooperating, though I don't exactly know why. I decided to do the clonezilla route, which doesn't require the RAID card to be bootable. So I went ahead and disabled CSM (which automatically disabled legacy OPROM loading), enabled RST and.... huh, RAID EFI and RST EFI plugins are working together now? Weird.
exit saving changes, go back into BIOS/UEFI config, and... okay, both still working as EFI. shrug.
So I'm booted RAID EFI (which It always was, just with the legacy OPROM enabled), installed the RST drivers, created the RST RAID0 on the NVMe's (which nicely match sizes exactly, that's convenient), and did a clone.
I'll reboot to the new EFI volumes later, probably will need to do a windows repair on it, which is common. So I'm left to try and figure out WHY the HW RAID's EFI wouldn't load previously without the legacy OPROM loading. I['m guessing that I tripped over another BIOS/UEFI setting somewhere, which probably alleviated a resource conflict of some kind, but idk and probably don't care enough to investigate further since I won't need the Legacy OPROM support anymore anyway. I know that enabling CSM can impact some PCI-E functions, but that still doesn't explain why it wouldn't load it's EFI plug in before, but does now.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Should not require any Win10 repair on it. Might want to install latest Intel Chipset, RST drivers and also NVME drivers. But those not being already installed should not cause Win10 to want to refuse to boot properly.

[Buck]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Bad 💀 Motha:

Should not require any Win10 repair on it. Might want to install latest Intel Chipset, RST drivers and also NVME drivers. But those not being already installed should not cause Win10 to want to refuse to boot properly.

Already had them installed before cloning. in my experience, sometimes gotta repair the clone, sometimes you don't. I did when i cloned this install from ACHI to the HW RAID, but this time it was happy and booted right up. all I had to do was change the primary boot selection. Performance seems modestly better too ,but I haven't timed it (I still have both boot volumes so I might do that just to see).

For some reason I was left with an unallocated 2GB's, idk why, but I can deal with moving the recovery partition and expanding the boot volume later.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

That's why whenever I install Windows OS I first wipe the drive 100% clean then dp a single partition via DiskPart. As those extra partitions that WINOS makes during a default install are rather pointless.

[Buck]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Bad 💀 Motha:

That's why whenever I install Windows OS I first wipe the drive 100% clean then dp a single partition via DiskPart. As those extra partitions that WINOS makes during a default install are rather pointless.

I personally HATE reinstalling. Until somewhat recently I actually had the same progressively upgraded Windows install going for the last 15 years or so! (WinXP x64 beta all the way up to Windows 10), and before that the same Win9x install that endured countless hardware and software upgrades.
Hell, I still have some old game files kicking around that were first installed in the mid-late 90's (Quake 2 and Quake 3).
I just find the whole process of clean installing tedious. It takes me days to put everything back together in a way that makes me comfortable, and I get stressed out worrying about what little thing I forgot (the curse of an ADHD brain).

Anyway, in this case it's not a windows partition thing, per se, just a bit of unallocated space left at the end of the drive, and I'm not sure why because I THOUGHT the new RAID 0 volume was the exact same size as the existing SSD HW RAID0. I just have to move the recovery partition to the end so I can expand the root volume. it's a 2TB VD tho, so I'm not overly concerned about it right now :)

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Why not reinstall? It only takes maybe 1 hour to wipe drive, clean install os, get updates and install all needed drivers and get back to where you were before. You can export your OS settings by backing up your OS user. As for Games, those shouldn't be on C Drive. As for saved game files, backup and restore these using GameSaveManager

[balbur]

.

[Buck]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Bad 💀 Motha:

Why not reinstall? It only takes maybe 1 hour to wipe drive, clean install os, get updates and install all needed drivers and get back to where you were before.

The initial install, sure, but everything else takes hours/days.

You can export your OS settings by backing up your OS user.

I know but all the programs/apps take forever to manually reinstall and reconfigure (and I have ALOT of them.)
They're not. All installed on 2 dedicated RAID 5 volumes. 8X2TB HDD's & 8X500GB SSD's.

As for Games, those shouldn't be on C Drive.

Save games are all safely in the Documents folder which is stored on the HDD RAID 5 or in the cloud.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Buck:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Bad 💀 Motha:

Why not reinstall? It only takes maybe 1 hour to wipe drive, clean install os, get updates and install all needed drivers and get back to where you were before.

The initial install, sure, but everything else takes hours/days.

You can export your OS settings by backing up your OS user.

I know but all the programs/apps take forever to manually reinstall and reconfigure (and I have ALOT of them.)
They're not. All installed on 2 dedicated RAID 5 volumes. 8X2TB HDD's & 8X500GB SSD's.

As for Games, those shouldn't be on C Drive.

Save games are all safely in the Documents folder which is stored on the HDD RAID 5 or in the cloud.

Then you're doing it all wrong.
All your Games should be on another drive. Then you load up steam, launch a game from the other drive, boom... back to gaming.

Yes I understand it can take some time to reinstall your apps like maybe Discord, OBS, maybe other web browsers; and configure all of those apps. But the main Windows OS settings can easily be backed up and restored to a clean install or another PC. But for the main OS + Drivers + Game Clients + Games; yea maybe 1-2 hours and you're back to gaming pal, no problem.

If you don't understand how to do it this quickly, please go learn.

Nothing should be on your C Drive that you can't up and wipe at a moments notice. Why? Well that C Drive isn't going to last forever and one day it might just refuse to read or work anymore. So never put precious data on C Drive, period. All your loose files, anything important, and all your Games, should be on other drives.

[Buck]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Bad 💀 Motha:

Then you're doing it all wrong.
All your Games should be on another drive. Then you load up steam, launch a game from the other drive, boom... back to gaming.

eh? I have 2 different steam libraries on 2 different RAID 5 volumes. All I had to do with that after reinstalling Steam was to simple manually add the libraries.

If you don't understand how to do it this quickly, please go learn.

Now you're just being rude. I literally do Systems analysis for a living. It's not that I can't, it's that I DONT WANT TO because it's annoying. I mean, do you honestly think I could have any skill with Hardware RAID if I didn't know how to fresh install an OS?

Nothing should be on your C Drive that you can't up and wipe at a moments notice. Why? Well that C Drive isn't going to last forever and one day it might just refuse to read or work anymore. So never put precious data on C Drive, period. All your loose files, anything important, and all your Games, should be on other drives.

Nothing precious is on there, that's not why I don't want to. I didn't mention that I just fresh installed a few weeks ago (because of a weird Windows desktop crashing issue). It's just simply easier and faster to clone it and move along.