RAID/ SATA Configuration

[Bad boy Warrior]

From my last post i thought i was having a Hard drive problems. As a backup the server somehow started to run and i left it to that. At the same time i ordered another hard drive (Western Digital - 20GB more space than my original HD- if this makes any difference to my question shortly), along with a few cables. Turned out there was a faulty cable as the server seems run fine meaning i have a spare hard drive.

I connected it and thought to use it as another hard drive, strangely when booting up the server woudnt boot. I have an ASUS A8V deluxe MB which has 2 slots for a SATA and i tried both by swapping around wires but couldnt get it to boot, however if i removed the new drive the server booted. I then saw a RAID slot so connected it to a RAID 2 slot and it booted up.

From my question on another board i remember someone mentioning that i can use this RAID drive to backup my domain (or sync the contents)........problem is not sure how to do it and not sure how to configure the RAID and what it exactly does - im sure if i follow the steps from the MB manual itll help but any guidance on if ive done something wrong here?? i.e. should the second SATA connection work? any reason why it may not have booted the server? any disadvantages using this drive as a RAID or should i use it as a SATA (in case ive not configured something correctly)? or is it not possible to backup a domain?

Thanks in advance.

[cluberti]

I can't speak to the hardware questions as I'm not familiar with that board or it's history in your box, but I can speak to domain backup. Assuming this is a domain controller in your domain, and this DC also holds the global catalog, then you can use ntbackup to backup the domain structures.

[Bad boy Warrior]

I can't speak to the hardware questions as I'm not familiar with that board or it's history in your box, but I can speak to domain backup. Assuming this is a domain controller in your domain, and this DC also holds the global catalog, then you can use ntbackup to backup the domain structures.

Thanks......i may have asked this question with the wrong terminology.

What im trying to attempt is to "mirror" my domain hard drive with the second SATA hard drive incase the original goes down - if it does the the second drive comes into play. (ive already created a backup but i think what im asking here would be different to a backup)

So far ive connected the 2nd HD to a RAID, but since ive never created a RAID before i dont know if im along the right lines in what im trying to do (create a mirror drive) or if this is something thats not possible at all with this config??

[cluberti]

If you create a RAID1 array that contains the Windows partition and the directory services data, then the RAID controller would have created a mirror on the second drive, and yes, it would take over if the first drive failed. However, if you're talking about moving the current data from a single drive to a new RAID that will be the boot volume, that's different.

I guess I'm still not clear on your actual question.

[Bad boy Warrior]

If you create a RAID1 array that contains the Windows partition and the directory services data, then the RAID controller would have created a mirror on the second drive, and yes, it would take over if the first drive failed. However, if you're talking about moving the current data from a single drive to a new RAID that will be the boot volume, that's different.

I guess I'm still not clear on your actual question.

Ok i have a server which has 1 SATA HD and WS2003 installed on it. I have another SATA HD that i would like to make use of, so i connected this HD to a RAID port. I would like this 2nd drive to mirror the 1st HD........Is this possible?

Let me know if this is still unclear?

[cluberti]

If you create a RAID1 array that contains the Windows partition and the directory services data, then the RAID controller would have created a mirror on the second drive, and yes, it would take over if the first drive failed. However, if you're talking about moving the current data from a single drive to a new RAID that will be the boot volume, that's different.

I guess I'm still not clear on your actual question.

Ok i have a server which has 1 SATA HD and WS2003 installed on it. I have another SATA HD that i would like to make use of, so i connected this HD to a RAID port. I would like this 2nd drive to mirror the 1st HD........Is this possible?

Let me know if this is still unclear?

Much better . If you are talking about Windows RAID, then no - Windows 2003 cannot create a RAID volume on a boot / Windows volume that isn't RAID (this is software RAID, mind you). As to the hardware RAID, this would be a function of the hardware RAID controller's BIOS - if you can go into that BIOS and create a RAID1 volume of 2 disks without deleting the contents of one of those disks (i.e. it can create a RAID1 volume from an existing disk and an identical new disk), then that would be the way to do it. However, if this causes Windows to boot from a new disk controller, this could cause you to bugcheck as the disk controller would be different.

[Bad boy Warrior]

If you create a RAID1 array that contains the Windows partition and the directory services data, then the RAID controller would have created a mirror on the second drive, and yes, it would take over if the first drive failed. However, if you're talking about moving the current data from a single drive to a new RAID that will be the boot volume, that's different.

I guess I'm still not clear on your actual question.

Ok i have a server which has 1 SATA HD and WS2003 installed on it. I have another SATA HD that i would like to make use of, so i connected this HD to a RAID port. I would like this 2nd drive to mirror the 1st HD........Is this possible?

Let me know if this is still unclear?

Much better . If you are talking about Windows RAID, then no - Windows 2003 cannot create a RAID volume on a boot / Windows volume that isn't RAID (this is software RAID, mind you). As to the hardware RAID, this would be a function of the hardware RAID controller's BIOS - if you can go into that BIOS and create a RAID1 volume of 2 disks without deleting the contents of one of those disks (i.e. it can create a RAID1 volume from an existing disk and an identical new disk), then that would be the way to do it. However, if this causes Windows to boot from a new disk controller, this could cause you to bugcheck as the disk controller would be different.

When i boot up i get a few options to configure this RAID disk. Just before i go further one thing i wanted to remind you.....

(Western Digital - 20GB more space than my original HD- if this makes any difference to my question shortly)

so the new disk has 20GB more.

Now out of these options (Manage array, create array, manage drive etc) im guessing this is hardware RAID so if play around with these options i can mirror the drive and not delete the original installation? when you say "

However, if this causes Windows to boot from a new disk controller, this could cause you to bugcheck as the disk controller would be different

" what do you mean by bugcheck? could i not just tell the BIOS to boot from the original drive?

sorry for the noob question - im new to RAID

[cluberti]

When i boot up i get a few options to configure this RAID disk. Just before i go further one thing i wanted to remind you.....

(Western Digital - 20GB more space than my original HD- if this makes any difference to my question shortly)

so the new disk has 20GB more.

Well, if you do create a RAID1 from two non-identically sized drives, the array will revert to using the smaller drive's size and the rest of the space on the larger drive will become useless. That's OK if you're OK with that, but just be aware.

Now out of these options (Manage array, create array, manage drive etc) im guessing this is hardware RAID so if play around with these options i can mirror the drive and not delete the original installation?

Well, I can't say for certain what will happen, because it's up to the RAID controller software to determine whether or not it'll be able to create an array from an existing drive without causing data loss. I would read up very closely on the options for creating a new array, RAID1, to be absolutely sure you can use the BIOS to create an array from an existing drive and a new one, without wiping out the data. There are controllers that can do the creation from an existing drive, and some that do not - make sure you know which one yours is before going forward .

when you say "

However, if this causes Windows to boot from a new disk controller, this could cause you to bugcheck as the disk controller would be different

" what do you mean by bugcheck? could i not just tell the BIOS to boot from the original drive

bugcheck=bluescreen. Windows keeps track of the controller and drive number that it boots from, and if either of these change, you'll get a bugcheck stating that the boot controller could not be found. On some of these motherboards, when you enable the RAID controller, it no longer boots as IDE and the controller "changes" to Windows. I'm warning you to beware of this, and have a good and tested backup in case this fails in this way. Changing an installed copy of Windows from a standard drive to a RAID array isn't something to be done lightly.