Going through the disk management material, have a question

So I am just labbing and playing around with disk partitioning while I study the A+ material just so I can solidify the knowledge and I recently purchased a new computer through Cybertron. They are not using a EUFI bios utility (outdated) and an MBR disk partition table.

My question is, let's say I want to update the BIOS and reformat my partition table as GPT rather than MBR is there a way to do that without losing all my data and will that allow me to create a RAID 3 array out of a single hard drive?

Just wanting to play around here.

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stryder144

First, good questions. When you change from MBR to GPT you will lose all of your data. There is no way around that, at least not that I know of (which means that there may be 3rd party tools of which I am not aware). Second, I don't know of any way to make a true RAID 3 (or any other type of RAID) using a single disk. If you are thinking about creating four partitions on one drive and using Disk Management to create a faux-RAID 3 set up, then I guess you could do that, though I have no experience with that.

boxerboy1168

Hmmm. Ok. Seems as if I can create a software based raid array on a single disk. Not sure how effective it is and thanks for answering my questions.

I guess that would essentially defeat the purpose of redundancy and parity when I really begin to think about it. Guess I'll have to purchase an actual server to play with.

stryder144

It is not necessary to purchase a server, to be honest. You could buy a hardware RAID card and several hard drives (HDD would be cheapest). How many open drive bays do you have and do you have an accessible PCIe slot? Check around and you should be able to find a decent RAID card to fit your motherboard (please read the reviews first, though).

boxerboy1168

Ahhhh ok. Manage storage spaces got it. Mike Meyer's Udemy course is very good.