Re: RAID 5

Hi Craig,

Thanks for your reply, and I am sorry for my delayed response.

Based on my further research, this issue may occur if you attempt to create
RAID 5 on a volume that operating system is on it. To create RAID 5, the
following requirements must be met:

- A minimum of three hard disk drives. IDE, SCSI or mixed architecture is
permissible.
- Any disks involved in striping must be dynamic. Conversion from basic to
dynamic goes very quickly without data loss. After you complete this
procedure, you must restart the computer.
- Operating system boot and system files must be on a different volume.
- The RAID-5 volume can take the entire disk or as little as 20 megabyte
(MB) for each disk.
- The status of all disks involved in a stripe volume must be online when
you create the striped volume.

Therefore, you may use 4 hard disks to create RAID 5, or you may use 3 hard
disks but do not use the system partition.

For your convenience, I have included some information about how to upgrade
to dynamic disk and how to convert to RAID 5.

How to Upgrade to Dynamic Disks
--------------------------------------------
NOTE : You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the
Administrators group to complete this procedure. If your computer is
connected to a network, network policy settings may prevent you from
completing this procedure.

To upgrade a basic disk to a dynamic disk:

1. Before you upgrade disks, close any programs that are running on those
disks.

2. Right-click the gray Disk Description pane that is located to the left
of the color-coded volume panes, and then click Upgrade to Dynamic Disk .

3. If the second disk in not a dynamic disk, follow the preceding steps to
upgrade it to a dynamic disk.

NOTE: Before starting convert to RAID 5, the computer must be restarted.

How to Convert to RAID-5
---------------------------------
In this scenario, there are four disks, Disk 0, 1, 2 and 3 on the computer.
Disk 0 is reserved for the operating system and boot files because they
cannot reside on a RAID-5 volume. The other three disks are the RAID-5
disks. There is 1 gigabyte (GB) of free unallocated space on each disk to
commit to the RAID-5 volume.

NOTE: 1 GB of free space on each of the three disks gives you a total
usable volume of 2 GB because of parity information that is written as part
of each stripe.

1. In the Disk Management tool, right-click the unallocated space on one of
the dynamic disks where you want to create the RAID-5 volume, and then
click Create Volume.

2. After the Create Volume Wizard starts, click Next.

3. Click RAID-5 volume, and then click Next.

4. Click the disks in the left pane under All Available Dynamic Disks, and
then click the Add tab.
The disks that are displayed in the right pane are labeled "Selected
Dynamic Disks".

5. Look at the bottom of the Select Disk dialog box under the Size label.
The For All Selected Disks box displays the maximum size of the RAID-5
volume you can make.

NOTE: The volume on each disk is the same size in the completed RAID-5
volume. For example, if you have 100 MB on the first disk, you have 100 MB
on the second disk, and so on. You may reduce the size of the volume from
the maximum size that the wizard automatically shows. To do so, click the
arrow on the Disk Size box to lower the volume size on this disk. On a
three-disk system, the total RAID-5 volume storage size is double the size
that you enter here. The Total Volume Size box lists your total storage
space,

6. Click Next. At this time, you may want to assign a drive letter (you can
also do this at any other time). To do so, click Assign Drive Letter, and
then enter an available drive letter.

Alternatively, you can click Do not assign drive letter or path. You can
also click Mount this volume on an empty folder that supports drive paths.

7. Click Next.

8. Click Format this partition with the following settings, and then follow
these steps:

a. Enter the file system type; FAT32 or NTFS is acceptable.
b. Leave the default selection in the Allocation Unit Size box.
c. In the Volume Label box, you may keep the default "New Volume" label or
you can type your own label.
d. At this time, you can click to select the Quick Format check box and the
File and Folder Compression check box. You can also defer both of these
tasks if you like.

9. Click Next , check your selection in the Summary window, and then click
Finish .

The RAID-5 volume is displayed on the three disks on your system. They have
the same color code, the same drive letter (if you mapped the drive during
the procedure), and they are both the same size. If you clicked the Quick
Format option, the status of the disks is displayed as "Regenerating" while
the drives are being formatted. After the disks are formatted, the status
of the disks is displayed as "Healthy". The RAID-5 volume is ready to be
used; you do not have to restart the computer.

Hope the above information helps. If anything is unclear or you have any
concerns, please feel free to post back. I am glad to be of assistance.

Have a nice day!

Steven Wang (MSFT)
Microsoft CSS Online Newsgroup Support

--------------------
>From: <stjoe5373@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>References: <OdOJgfB9FHA.3592@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<ege921J9FHA.500@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<QVvM8rM9FHA.832@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<#fUbtBO9FHA.3804@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: RAID 5
>Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 13:43:01 -0500
>Lines: 142
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>Xref: TK2MSFTNGXA02.phx.gbl microsoft.public.windows.server.general:82836
>X-Tomcat-NG: microsoft.public.windows.server.general
>
>Is anyone seeing this post?
><stjoe5373@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:%23fUbtBO9FHA.3804@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Thanks Steven and Chris,
>>
>> My problem is that when I install 2000 Server it creates the c:\ (or the
>> boot volume?) as a basic disk, when I upgrade it to dynamic as you know I
>> then can't create an RAID, how do I create a dynamic volume initially?
>> I'm pretty clear on RAID 5 in general I'm just having
>> issues getting the volume to be dynamic instead of basic to begin with.
Is
>> there a step I'm missing when I'm installing Windows or when
>> I'm formatting the hard disk?
>>
>> Thanks Craig
>>
>>
>> "Steven Wang [MSFT]" <v-stwang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:QVvM8rM9FHA.832@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Thank you for posting. Also thanks for Chris' kind inputs, and he has
>>> provided useful information for us.
>>>
>>> You may first refer to the KB article 225551 which Chris has mentioned
to
>>> see whether the issue can be resolved.
>>>
>>> For more information about creating RAID 5 on Windows 2000 Server,
please
>>> refer to the following links:
>>>
>>> http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/advanced/help/dm_raid5.htm
>>>
>>>
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/maintain/operat
>>> e/11w2kada.mspx
>>>
>>> If the issue persists, please help me to capture a screen shot of the
>>> error
>>> message, so that I can perform further research on this issue. To
>>> capture
>>> a screen shot, you can:
>>>
>>> 1. When the screen appears, press the Print Screen key several times,
>>> which
>>> is to the right of the F12 key on the keyboard.
>>> 2. Open Paint or Microsoft Word or WordPad.
>>> 3. Click Edit (menu) -> Paste or press Ctrl + V.
>>> 4. Click File (menu) -> Save. Save it to a file and attach it in email
to
>>> send it to me at v-stwang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>
>>> If anything is unclear or you have any concerns, please feel free to
post
>>> back. I am glad to be of assistance.
>>>
>>> Have a nice day!
>>>
>>> Steven Wang (MSFT)
>>> Microsoft CSS Online Newsgroup Support
>>>
>>> Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
>>> =====================================================
>>> This newsgroup only focuses on SBS technical issues. If you have issues
>>> regarding other Microsoft products, you'd better post in the
>>> corresponding
>>> newsgroups so that they can be resolved in an efficient and timely
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>>> When opening a new thread via the web interface, we recommend you check
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>>> so, it will ensure your issues are resolved in a timely manner.
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>>> For urgent issues, you may want to contact Microsoft CSS directly.
Please
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>>>
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>>> =====================================================
>>> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
>>> rights.
>>>
>>> --------------------
>>>>From: "chrispsg" <ccalbreath@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>References: <OdOJgfB9FHA.3592@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>Subject: Re: RAID 5
>>>>Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:29:21 -0600
>>>>Lines: 26
>>>>X-Priority: 3
>>>>X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
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>>>>Path: TK2MSFTNGXA02.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGP08.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl
>>>>Xref: TK2MSFTNGXA02.phx.gbl
microsoft.public.windows.server.general:82678
>>>>X-Tomcat-NG: microsoft.public.windows.server.general
>>>>
>>>>
>>>><stjoe5373@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>>news:OdOJgfB9FHA.3592@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> I think I'm missing something, over the weekend I was installing
>>>>> Windows
>>>>> 2000 Server, what I tried to do was create a RAID 5 in the Computer
>>>>> Management. I upgraded disk 0 to a dynamic disk, then I'd attempt to
>>>>> create a RAID but I get a message saying something to the affect that
>>> you
>>>>> can't do that when a disk was originally created as a basic disk.
>>>>> Now, when I click in the gray area just to the left I can create a
>>> second
>>>>> volume but it's only 8 mb. This doesn't seem to be the clearest
>>>>> posting
>>>>> but maybe it's enough to get something started. By the way I do have
3
>>>>> hard disks in the server all the same size that part is ok, I just
>>>>> can't
>>>>> seem to include the OS into the RAID configuration.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>The disk needs to be originally a dynamic disk. Read this.
>>>>
>>>>http://support.microsoft.com/kb/225551/
>>>>
>>>>psg
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

.

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