I am currently using Win 7 Pro with dynamic disks for software mirroring of my data drives. I am thinking about setting up an unraid server but I wanted to check first if I can migrate data from a dynamic disks, or would I have to convert them back to basic disk?

 

Thanks

I am currently using Win 7 Pro with dynamic disks for software mirroring of my data drives. I am thinking about setting up an unraid server but I wanted to check first if I can migrate data from a dynamic disks, or would I have to convert them back to basic disk?

 

Thanks

Not sure of your question.

 

If you leave the existing disks in your Win 7 server, then you can copy/paste folders and files to the unRAID server over the LAN to migrate your files.

 

If you intend to physically move the disk drives to the unRAID server and attempt to read them connected directly to its motherboard, I'm sure they will be un-readable and treated as if they are unformatted if they are "dynamic" disks.

 

unRAID can mount NTFS formatted drives (either on the command line if you know the linux commands, or via add-ons like unMENU that know how to mount drives)  The device driver for NTFS disks is read-only, but you can install the nfts-3g driver if you really want to be able to write to the drives.

 

Joe L.

Joe, LAN is not a bad idea to get around any potential issues. I intend to physically move the disks; I understand that unRAID can read NTFS. However, dynamic disks are not normally readable outside of windows, it's essentially software raid 0-1 built-in to windows OS. Thanks for the reply, wondering if anyone has tried this. I'm inclined to install the unRAID and attached a dynamic disk to see if it can be read.

Joe, LAN is not a bad idea to get around any potential issues. I intend to physically move the disks; I understand that unRAID can read NTFS. However, dynamic disks are not normally readable outside of windows, it's essentially software raid 0-1 built-in to windows OS. Thanks for the reply, wondering if anyone has tried this. I'm inclined to install the unRAID and attached a dynamic disk to see if it can be read.

I don't think you need to wonder. 

 

The driver built into unRAID is so old and brain-damaged it is enabled only as read-only.  It has a tiny ability to write to files, but only if they already exist and only if it does not increase their size.  (basically, for writing, it is useless, so it is considered read-only)

 

That ntfs driver on more recent Linux systems has been replaced with an ntfs-3g driver.  It has full read/write capabilities...  however

dynamic disks is a layer below the file-system (between the physical disks and the file-system).  The equivalent would be the logical-device-manager built into some linux releases.

 

Unfortunately, there is no such capability in unRAID and the kernel was not compiled with LDM support.  So, no need to wonder, your dynamic disks will not be usable connected directly to an unRAID array disk controller.

 

Joe, thanks again for your thorough response and for saving me a few hours tinkering with my computer.

I see this thread is pretty old, but just an FYI

 

I had dynamic discs in Windows XP Pro ... I tried porting them over to Vista machine ... It was just Vista Home Premium and of course it could not read the dynamic discs, but it could recognize that the disk was there in windows Device / Disk Management

 

However, I found a way to hex edit the discs in Vista and change them to look as if they were basic which allowed Vista to be able to read them

 

This may or may not translate 1 to 1 for unRAID / linux. 

 

I did this like 2 years back ... this was the first google link I just found ... not the same one I used, but similar:

http://www.dynamic-disk.com/convert-dynamic-disk-to-basic.html#”second-way”