Tips on setting up raid drives for new SBS 2003 install

#1 debbiestreasurebox

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Posted 16 March 2006 - 08:17 PM

Just got in our new server which had no operating system setup on it. I wanted to get some advice on the configuration setup I should go with. Here is my server layout. Somewhat of a newbie on server setup but have a pretty good knowledge of computers.

Dual 2.4 Zeons, Intel SE7500CW2 motherboard, 2 gigs of memory, 4U Case, 1 Buslink PCI-2S raid controller, 1 Highpoint 1820a raid controller, 2 WD400 (37gig) SATA hard drives, 4 WD2500 (250gig) SATA drives.

My initial idea was to have my Small Business Server 2003 Premium install on the 2 WD400 drives and have it in Raid 1. Then to have my WD2500 drives in Raid 5 for all our network data. Is this a good choice to go with? Are there any other considerations that I should look at?

My biggest question I have here, is how I should go about setting this all up. Should I just configure all the raids in the bios setup first and should I do both controllers in bios. Or, should I just configure the OS portion of the controller, and then configure the raid 5 via the software I have for the Highpoint Controller. I am just looking for some kind of step-by-step guide in going through the whole server OS install with two types of controllers I have. Basically the best way to go about in getting my system all setup for a working server. Any or all suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Debbie

#2 cluberti

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Posted 17 March 2006 - 08:33 AM

If you can configure the RAID in the BIOS of each controller, that would be much more recoverable that doing it in software in Windows - if Windows dies and you can't restore it, the software RAID is gone too. If it's on the controller, and you lose Windows for some reason, the data goes nowhere and everything is (relatively) kosher.

I would go with your first idea - RAID1 for the OS and RAID5 for the data volume.

#3 nmX.Memnoch

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Posted 17 March 2006 - 08:54 AM

I second that...configure the arrays in the controller before starting setup. This will allow you to create all of your partitions during install so that your drive letters are already setup. I also second going with your original plan....two WD400's in RAID1 for OS, four WD2500's in RAID5 for data. This should give you the best mix of performance and redundancy you can have with your current setup.

#4 fizban2

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Posted 17 March 2006 - 11:01 AM

i'll add a third... and thats about it cause all the good point has already been covered

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