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Windows PC with Intel Chipset and Intel RAID-1. Currently the RAID 1 runs on two 1TB HDDs just with drive C.

I want to change this to a RAID-1 with two 512GB SSDs for drive C and RAID-1 on two HDDs for drive D.

If the size of the new disks would be the same or bigger I would just change one disk and let the RAID rebuild to the new disk and then repeat the process later with the 2nd new disk. But this obviously won't work with new disks which are smaller.

My idea is to reduce the size of the current RAID to 500GB and then use the above process. But I don't see a way to decrease the size of the RAID.

Does anybody know how to decrease the size of an existing RAID-1? In Windows the RAID is managed by Intel Rapid Storage Technology software which has an option to increase size but no option do decrease size.

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  • Why not just copy? Or backup/restore? Nov 22, 2017 at 11:45
  • @DavidSchwartz: Thanks. Copy How? The whole RAID or the partition after I created a new RAID? Backup/restore is an option I thought about, but just if RAID size decrease would be possible I would prefer that option.
    – Edgar
    Nov 23, 2017 at 3:08

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I used this method added another disks, made them raid1, then cloned from one raid to another, removed the initial disks, made the system boot again (boot repair if needed) and then added additional disks and created new array for data. Copy is not an option with boot disk that is needed to boot again. Backup and restore is also possible but more tricky.

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    That works, but only if the new disk is the same size or larger than the old one. I want to replace a HDD RAID with a SSD RAID and the SSDs are smaller...
    – Edgar
    Feb 3, 2018 at 17:28
  • If You have on Your old raid array smaller amount of data to clone than SSD max size itself, clone softwares (as many that I used) are capable also resize partitions. Only hidden system partitions needs to stay on their original size. You cannot have raid array made smaller if You manually fail drives and replace them - resize can be made this way only bigger. That's why I told about cloning to another array or image that can later on restore to ssd array that is smaller in size.
    – kps
    Feb 4, 2018 at 18:17
  • No, you are misunderstanding him: 1. Replace all old disks with new ones, create new RAID 1 array on them. 2. Remove one new drive and replace with old. Boot from old drive as before. Both arrays are degraded. 3. Clone old drive volume to new drive. 4. Replace old with other drive from new array. 5. Now the system will rebuild the new array with the new drives. Works if user data on old array is smaller than new drive size.
    – TJJ
    Oct 23, 2020 at 15:04

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