Ok - the drives are connected to a Silicon image RAID controller on the
motherboard (board is A8n SLI Deluxe from ASUS).

Disks at the moment are set up in the SI setup (upon boot) as JBOD.

So, by cloning and restoring to the array i'd get no benefit at all, unless
I did a full reinstallation?

I'd be better in that case trying to install from scratch then, wouldnt I?

Thing is, i've tried before (this pc has just been returned as it was sent
back with a perceived MB fault, as the setup BSOD'd after setup, when the
raid controllers were enabled, and the drivers installed during setup). Can
installXP normally if i dont enable the RAID features.

Its been returned with "no hardware fault" - so im reluctant to blitz it and
start again.

"Jim" wrote:

> A word of caution here. When using a stripped array, I've noted something
> w/ my Promise FastTrak 100 TX2 that *might* be common to RAID hardware
> generally.
>
> First time I setup a RAID0 array, I made an image copy of the source HD.
> Then setup the array and restored the image to the array. BUT, there was a
> problem. A benchmark of the RAID0 array showed NO IMPROVEMENT! I was
> initally puzzled, how could this be. I can't prove it, but what I suspect
> is that when you restore the image, it's typically based on sectors, not
> files. When this happens, the RAID0 array is NOT optimzed across both
> drives. Instead, it's mapped to ONE drive! IOW, all the benefits of the
> stripped array are lost. So I did a further test to prove (to my
> satisfaction) my suspicions. I restored the image file to another HD
> (external, slave, whatever). I then created an empty partition on the new
> array, then COPIED FILE BY FILE from the other HD to the new partition on
> RAID0, then ran a benchmark. Whalla, I ended up with vastly improved
> performance.
>
> My conclusing was that although I could restore to the array directly from
> an image, it was self-defeating. Only by forcing files into the array
> file-by-file did the array optimize storage across all HDs.
>
> So just a warning. Maybe my situation was unique to my hardware, but this
> was something I discovered quite some time ago and worked through a
> solution. Benchmark that RAID0 array after the image is restored to it to
> make SURE you don't have the same problem.
>
> Jim
>
>
>
>
> "Shenan Stanley" <newshelper@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:e6xV6KN8FHA.1276@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > sauvagii wrote:
> > > Can anybody tell me, if its possible using a third party
> > > application such as Ghost, or Driveimage, to take the existing
> > > installation on my PC (was only delivered yesterday) from a hard
> > > disk and back up onto a spare disk - and then restore it to a newly
> > > formatted/setup Raid 0 array (the installation already has RAID
> > > drivers installed) - except the array has not been set up as i'd
> > > asked.
> >
> > Hardware RAID - yes.
> > Software RAID - unlikely.
> >
> > --
> > Shenan Stanley
> > MS-MVP
> > --
> > How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
> > http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
> >
> >
>
>
>