I'm using a RAID 1 (mirrored pair) configuration in my Media Center/ NAS system. Currently it's running Windows 8 (yeah, big mistake I know) and I'm regretting it (did it for the games, not worth it).Currently I'm having two software RAID 1s (3TB + 2TB) configured with Storage Spaces and unfortunately formatted with NTFS.Now I would like to switch to Fedora (or maybe Ubuntu if there are advantages) for good. Is there a way that I could continue using the disks as they are without the need to format them with ext or something?I'm glad for every tip.Oh, the system disk is of cause not in a raid configuration.
Moving software RAID 1 to Linux
linux;fedora;windows;raid;software raid
I've never tried with these specific RAID technologies but it's been my experience that it's best to operate at the filesystem level when attempting to migrate data from one physical implementation of RAID to another. What do I mean by this? I mean that I would get another set of disks and move my content from the 1st RAID to a intermediate location (some set of HDD's needed to hold it), and then reconfigure the RAID HDDs in the new RAID technologies.This is definitely more work, and requires that you have HDDs enough to hold your data while transferring it, but it's a tried and true approach that has always worked for many.Using some migration path is, no doubt, a less traveled approach, and you're running the risk of losing your data in the process. If the conversion fails in any way you're back to the approach that I'm suggesting anyway.So I'd bite the bullet and go with this approach from the start, it will just work, and you'll waste a lot less of your valuable time in the process.