HP smart start question

We just got a new HP DL370. I downloaded the smart start .iso, burned it and ran it fine. I configured the drives as we needed them in the smart start array utility.

After I loaded W2k8 R2x64, looking in the drive management, all but the boot partition showed as unallocated (black in color). Just to make them visible in windows explorer, i changed the disks to dynamic and made them all "simple" disks.

What is confusing me is whether or not that is normal. When i set something up as raid 1 or raid 5 in the SS utility, i guess i expected that to be the end of it...unless i did something wrong.

Anyone out there install OS's on HP servers often able to tell me if that is the common sequence?

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Comments

wd40

After creating arrays your windows server will see a group of HDD's as a single HDD "Depending on your selection when you created the array(s)"

Then it is up to you how you want to use it, you can divide it, use different Filing systems etc.

screen shots from disk management and from HP's array configuration page will help.

brad-

wd40 wrote: »

After creating arrays your windows server will see a group of HDD's as a single HDD "Depending on your selection when you created the array(s)"

Then it is up to you how you want to use it, you can divide it, use different Filing systems etc.

screen shots from disk management and from HP's array configuration page will help.

I'll get you some on Monday.

brad-

Here's exactly what it looks like:

brad-

Can anyone that works with Proliants and uses SmartStart to create the drive arrays look at this and let me know if it looks normal in disk mgmt?

Pash

brad- wrote: »

Can anyone that works with Proliants and uses SmartStart to create the drive arrays look at this and let me know if it looks normal in disk mgmt?

ill let you know tomorrow, havent built 2008 R2 server yet on Hp platform. I have created the array from boot already and entered the license key for Smart Array advanced package.

Starke

It looks like you created five different arrays and you have five drives in Windows that you formatted. Everything looks fine, I'm not sure where the confusion is.

brad-

Starke wrote: »

It looks like you created five different arrays and you have five drives in Windows that you formatted. Everything looks fine, I'm not sure where the confusion is.

Since this is the first time I've done it, I have nothing to compare it to. What confused me was after I set up the arrays (before loading the OS), I thought that would be the end of configuring the drives. It wasnt, after installing the OS, I had to initialize each drive letter as a simple volume before they could be used. I assumed this was correct, but again with nothing to compare with, I wasnt sure I did it correctly.

A secondary question here...I also left one of the drives unassigned as a spare. My assumption is that anything I have as a raid 1 or raid 5, I can hot-swap the unassigned spare if a drive goes bad.

Thanks for your replies guys.

Pash

brad- wrote: »

Since this is the first time I've done it, I have nothing to compare it to. What confused me was after I set up the arrays (before loading the OS), I thought that would be the end of configuring the drives. It wasnt, after installing the OS, I had to initialize each drive letter as a simple volume before they could be used. I assumed this was correct, but again with nothing to compare with, I wasnt sure I did it correctly.

A secondary question here...I also left one of the drives unassigned as a spare. My assumption is that anything I have as a raid 1 or raid 5, I can hot-swap the unassigned spare if a drive goes bad.

Thanks for your replies guys.

The hot spare is configured when you setup the array usually, the array needs to know which drive in which bay to begin writing to.

brad-

Pash wrote: »

The hot spare is configured when you setup the array usually, the array needs to know which drive in which bay to begin writing to.

Right, I did see that option, but it limited me to only assigning a certain array. What I would want to do is let replace a drive in any array...which i would have to do manually, but that is fine.