Is It Possible to Resize RAID?

• Is it possible to partition RAID? The answer is yes! This article will introduce a great solution to partition RAID without data loss.
  
  RAID is frequently used now.
  As we all know, RAID is frequently used in Windows Server. When you are looking for a dedicated server for your company, you may select different hardware for it. One of the most important things (especially for database driven websites) is to choose fast and reliable storage system. And RAID is preferred by Windows server users.
  
  You must be wondering what is RAID:
  RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, which is a technology that employs the simultaneous use of two or more hard disk drives to achieve greater levels of performance, reliability, and/or larger data volume sizes. When several physical disks are set up to use RAID technology, they are said to be in a RAID array which distributes data among several disks. Meanwhile, the array is seen as one single disk by the users and operating system.
  
  RAID makes use of two or more hard drives in order to improve performance, reliability or create larger data volumes. The former is achieved through striping, whereby data is split and written across multiple drives to increase throughput, and reliability can be improved by introducing redundancy. An example of this is a mirrored RAID array, whereby data is written to more than one disk so that in the event of a single disk failure, an exact copy of the original data still remains.
  
  Usually, there are 7 most commonly used RAID levels as follows:
  
  

  Level	Description	Minimum No. of disks
  RAID 0	Striped set without parity/ [Non-Redundant Array]	2
  RAID 1	Mirrored set without parity	2
  RAID 2	Redundancy through Hamming code	3
  RAID 3	Redundancy through Hamming code	3
  RAID 4	Striped set with dedicated parity/Bit interleaved parity	3
  RAID 5	Block level parity	3
  RAID 6	Striped set with distributed parity	4

  
  
  RAID is really used to its full potential in emergency services and Professional where data reliability and performance are essential. Meanwhile, partitioning RAID can maximize its performance as well as optimize the data reliability.
  
  Why should we partition RAID?
  We can simply say that we need to partition RAID to optimize the performance of our servers. A typical example is the partition on the hardware RAID is running out of space. You may want to rebuild the hardware RAID with a larger hard disk. Then, you need to backup the data to another place, rebuild the hardware RAID and restore the data again. What a time-consuming task! And you might lose your valuable data in the process.
  
  You may wonder how we can partition RAID without data loss. The answer is that you need to get the help of a professional partition software.
  
  Partition Wizard Server Edition is a professional partition software that allows RAID management without data loss.
  
  Through the following steps you can resize RAID in minutes:
  1. Insert a new hard disk to the existing hardware RAID and organize this RAID using a RAID controller. Then you can have some unallocated space on this RAID.
  Suppose you need to extend partition E: on this RAID and there is unallocated space next to it.
  2. Launch Partition Wizard Server Edition and you will see its user interface.
  
  
  
  3. Right click partition E and select Resize/Move.
  
  
  
  4. A popped-up dialog box indicates the current size of E: partition. The box also depicts the used and unused space on the partition and the free space surrounding the partition (if any exists), the minimum and maximum sizes that you can resize a partition, as well as the cluster size of the partition.
  
  
  
  5. Position the mouse pointer on the right partition handle. When the mouse pointer changes to a double-headed arrow, drag the handle to the partition size you want. Click OK.
  
  Attention: Don't forget to apply the changes you've made to finalize the resizing operation.
  
  If you do not yet have Partition Wizard Server Edition, you can download it for free from the Download Centre for a trial.
  
  Tip: If you are a server user with more than 3 machines, Partition Wizard Enterprise Edition that allows unlimited licenses is strongly recommended.