I have just purchased a laptop that is still in its box and does not have Windows installed yet (I'll use the laptop for 3D modelling and cannot afford data loss). The laptop comes with 2x 500 GBs NVMe SSDs that are set in RAID 0 to form a 1 TB array. I would like to remove the RAID and have each SSD on its own. However, this is my first rodeo and I am uncertain of many things:
Do I first install Windows before removing the RAID in the bios?
If I removed the RAID from the bios before I install windows, will I lose the OS (windows) and the OS liscense key accordingly?
If I get the RAID removed successfully, How do I set up the 2 SSDs, set 1 SSD for OS and the other for storage? is there a better format?
If I set 1 SSD for the OS, would any backup I make later on be automatically be set on it? will the applications I download be automatically put on it? should I partition it?
If I do not remove the RAID and install the windows, would any backup I make be shared onto both SSDs (because it is in a RAID array)?, Should I even do this, am I on the right track?
What do you think is the best way to approach this RAID removal procedure (step by step wise)?
Thank you so much (in advance) for any input .
1 Answer
- Swapping from RAID 0 to AHCI or JBOD RAID will remove whatever is on the disks in the raid array.
- You will have to reinstall windows from scratch. The windows license key should be stored in BIOS so you wont lose your license. You might have to boot into the original windows configuration once to activate it though. I'm unsure of that.
- That's entirely up to you. The easiest way would be to keep them as 2 drives each with one partition.
- You can chose your backup location at any time. Applications you install will default to install to your OS drive, however many applications will allow you to chose where you install them. I dont see a need to have more than one partition on each drive.
- RAID 0 is a striped array, meaning your data gets spread over the available disks. The raid controller writes the first block to disk 1, second to disk 2 and so on. It results in higher speeds. Biggest drawback is when 1 disk dies, you lose all your data. Again, in regards to backup, you can backup to any target you like. It's never a good idea to backup your data to the same medium the data is on. Get an external USB HDD, NAS or cloud storage to backup to.
- This is likely done in the laptops BIOS.
