can RAID arrays be ghosted?

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Mon Oct 08, 2001 4:53 pm

i've searched and can't find the answer...

is it possible to ghost a RAID setup all at once (i've never seen the option in ghost)...does it recognize RAID arrays?

if not, do you have to ghost each HD separately from the RAID array and then piece it back together when you put the ghost image back?

thanks-

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Oct 09, 2001 11:03 am

This is a hardware RAID array right?

A hardware RAID array appears to DOS, WIndows and any app like Ghost as ONE hard drive, so yes you can Ghost the whole array as if it was one drive.

For all intents and purposes as far as you're concerned, the array always acts as a single drive. It's impossible for you to even see the seperate drives of the array in any OS or application except in the RAID controller's BIOS.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 7:55 am

yes, it's a hardware RAID setup...

so then the question: DOS will see it as one drive, so you can ghost it, but when you restore the image, ghost is smart enough to recreate the array across multiple disks? i didn't think (but am happy) it was that smart.

edit: i just thought about it more...i suppose that's the whole idea of the hardware controller...so ghost doesn't have to know what to do.

thanks-

NascarFool · Post by **NascarFool** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 1:20 pm

Ghost requires two drives or two partitions. It will not make an image to the drive that it is imaging. If raid shows two drives as one, it probably won't work. I will do some checking tonight.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 2:05 pm

Just forget about the fact that the RAID array is 2 drives - as far as DOS, Windows and Ghost is concerned it's one physical drive. When you restore to it from Ghost it appears as one physical drive.

Ghost can't save an image file to the same partition you're ghosting, so ideally you should have a spare "Scratch" partition. I have a 15 Gb scratch partition I use for editing videos and for temporarily storing large files which is perfect for this.

Some people use a spare drive for backups - an old 10 of 15 Gb 5400 rpm drive is perfect and you can find them cheap used. Don't forget that Ghost compresses image files (ALWAYS use HIGH compression) which gives you nearly a 2 to 1 compression.

Ghost 7.0 and later can also save an image directly to a CD-R, but I don't recommend it - it's much more reliable to save it to a hard drive and then burn it if you want to. You should always use the following command line when running Ghost to force it to chop up and images into less than 700 Mb chunks so they fit on CD-Rs:

ghostpe.exe -split=680 -auto

I don't use -split=700 because I've found Ghost will occasionally make an image file slightly larger than 700Mb if you do that. A value of 680 plays safe.

There are some real good reasons why you should use several small partitions instead of one or two big ones: damage control, ease of backup, ease of repair.

Although there's nothing that will save your data if you suffer a massive hard drive crash, most disk corruption is usually a soft corruption of the FAT. If you have one big partition then a trashed fat will put all your data at risk. By segregating everything into smaller partitions, you limit the damage to only the one partition that suffered the FAT damage - it won't affect any others as long as it's not a physical disk crash.

It's also a hell of a lot faster to scandisk and defrag smaller partitions.

Here's how my system is partitioned:

I have Win98 and Win2K each in their own partitions. Nothing else is installed in these partitions. I don't use 98 except as an emergency backup for Win2K.

All my apps are installed in App1, App2, or App3 partitions.

Games go in one of the two game partitions.

The Temp partition is for downloads, IE & netscape cache, etc.

The smaller 1Gb Scratch partition is for temp storage of files to be burned on a Cd-R, and the larger Scratch partition is for video editing and storing large temp files like Ghost images.

All my data (and I mean EVERYTHING) is located on the data partition: Documents folder, client web pages, favorites folder, Outlook user files & address book, and any data files from apps that don't use the My Documents folder. This makes it obscenely easy to backup my data weekly - I just Ghost the whole data partition.

Every month I Ghost my Win2K and 98 partitions. I carry these, the latest data image, my Win2K install CD as well as CD-R copies of all the important apps I need in a small CD valise in my briefcase. In an emergency I can be up and running on another computer in an hour or two. It's saved my bacon twice already.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 2:47 pm

excellent post, FP.

i have been using ghost 6.5 enterprise and it has the direct burn to cd-r feature...that's the only way i've done it!

never had a problem...but i think i might switch to using an old HD like you said...i'm accumulating too many cd-r's from backups each month. hehehe

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 2:57 pm

I've got one of those removable drive bays installed. It's usually empty, but often when I service a client's computer, I'll pop their drive in there temporarily to Ghost it. I also do that with my wife's and my lappy drives occasionally.

WeekendWarrior · Post by **WeekendWarrior** » Sun Nov 18, 2001 4:42 pm

Great post FP one question...I want to back my c drive up onto cdr's with ghost ...
If I make the image on my D: partition first and I split them into 680 meg files ...how do I burn them to cdr's? any special way?
How will Ghost restore them on different cdr's ? If I didnt burn them right from ghost?
Reason I ask is I dont think my burner works in dos but I do know how to save the image to another hard drive.
thanks
WW

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin
Just forget about the fact that the RAID array is 2 drives - as far as DOS, Windows and Ghost is concerned it's one physical drive. When you restore to it from Ghost it appears as one physical drive.

Ghost can't save an image file to the same partition you're ghosting, so ideally you should have a spare "Scratch" partition. I have a 15 Gb scratch partition I use for editing videos and for temporarily storing large files which is perfect for this.

Some people use a spare drive for backups - an old 10 of 15 Gb 5400 rpm drive is perfect and you can find them cheap used. Don't forget that Ghost compresses image files (ALWAYS use HIGH compression) which gives you nearly a 2 to 1 compression.

Ghost 7.0 and later can also save an image directly to a CD-R, but I don't recommend it - it's much more reliable to save it to a hard drive and then burn it if you want to. You should always use the following command line when running Ghost to force it to chop up and images into less than 700 Mb chunks so they fit on CD-Rs:

ghostpe.exe -split=680 -auto

I don't use -split=700 because I've found Ghost will occasionally make an image file slightly larger than 700Mb if you do that. A value of 680 plays safe.

There are some real good reasons why you should use several small partitions instead of one or two big ones: damage control, ease of backup, ease of repair.

Although there's nothing that will save your data if you suffer a massive hard drive crash, most disk corruption is usually a soft corruption of the FAT. If you have one big partition then a trashed fat will put all your data at risk. By segregating everything into smaller partitions, you limit the damage to only the one partition that suffered the FAT damage - it won't affect any others as long as it's not a physical disk crash.

It's also a hell of a lot faster to scandisk and defrag smaller partitions.

Here's how my system is partitioned:

I have Win98 and Win2K each in their own partitions. Nothing else is installed in these partitions. I don't use 98 except as an emergency backup for Win2K.

All my apps are installed in App1, App2, or App3 partitions.

Games go in one of the two game partitions.

The Temp partition is for downloads, IE & netscape cache, etc.

The smaller 1Gb Scratch partition is for temp storage of files to be burned on a Cd-R, and the larger Scratch partition is for video editing and storing large temp files like Ghost images.

All my data (and I mean EVERYTHING) is located on the data partition: Documents folder, client web pages, favorites folder, Outlook user files & address book, and any data files from apps that don't use the My Documents folder. This makes it obscenely easy to backup my data weekly - I just Ghost the whole data partition.

Every month I Ghost my Win2K and 98 partitions. I carry these, the latest data image, my Win2K install CD as well as CD-R copies of all the important apps I need in a small CD valise in my briefcase. In an emergency I can be up and running on another computer in an hour or two. It's saved my bacon twice already.