Server Discs

billybob01

I have a dell poweredge 2800 server that someone has configured and installed the O/S on. Now without sounding stupid i have never worked with hardware Raid before and need to read up on it. I know there are 6 hdd`s and in the Disk Management all you can see is 2 drives. 1 with the O/S and another about 400GB in size. Now i need to install some software but i want to partition the drive up. Can i treat this drive as if it were a software raid or do i have to treat it differently.

Webmaster

billybob01 wrote:

Can i treat this drive as if it were a software raid or do i have to treat it differently.

You can treat it (the 400 GB I assume you want to partition) as a single physical disk, as that is how the OS perceives it.

It sounds like the OS is installed on a single disk, and the other 5 disks are configured in a single RAID 5 set. Or 2 as a RAID 1 (mirror) for the OS and 4 as a RAID set. You could figure that out simply by looking at the disk sizes and resulting volume sizes of the raid set. For example, if each disk is 100GB, one could be the OS, 5 could be configured in a RAID 5 of 400GB (you basically lose the size equal to 1 disk when you create a RAID 5 set, hence a minimum of 3 disks are required).

ajs1976

On the Programs Menu, you should be able to find a utility called Array Manager. That will tell you how your drives are configured.

Since the system uses hardware RAID, windows only thinks there are two physical drives installed. If there is nothing on the second drive, you can delete the partition and multiple partitions on the drive. If there is data that keeps you from deleting, then you can use a tool to repartition.

sprkymrk

If you don't see the Array Manager program, it may not be installed as it is optional when you set up a Dell PE with the Server Assistant software and not an option if he just set it up with a W2K3 disk. You can find it on the CD's that came with the Dell, or go to Dell and download it. You can look for either Array Manager or OpenManage Server Administrator.

It will show you the physical disks, the arrays, the logical disks, etc. Highly recommended. It also installs a plugin to Computer Management so you can view it there along with Windows Disk Management.

billybob01

Thanks guys. I hoped that he would of left it to me to configure as i feel this is a step that i have missed out on. Is it difficult to set up or where can i find some info on setting up a hardware raid?

sprkymrk

I think your hardware raid is already set up.
It's easy with the Dell utility if you just want a basic setup.
You can watch for the message at boot up to enter the RAID setup and configure it from there, but you definately don't want to screw up an existing setup. There should be info on the Dell site regarding the PERC setup options (PERC = Power Edge RAID Controller).

ajs1976

If you are setting up a dell server from scratch, they come with an Installation Boot CD that will load the required drivers, help you configure the RAID, and even create an answer file parts of the Windows installation.