Re: Implementing a RAID 1 Array
- From: v-yanniw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ("Jenny wu [MSFT]")
- Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 10:24:39 GMT
Hi Ed Podowski,
Thanks for posting here! Also thanks for Andrew's input.
For your description, I understand that you have some concerns about
install SBS 2003 on the hardware RAID 1 drive. If I am off base, please
don't hesitate to let me know.
For your RAID 1 drive is hardware RAID 1, you will not see the mirrored
drive in the Disk Management console.
What is your mean "After partitioning and installing the SBS 2003 operating
system, the second drive did not have any data."? Do you mean you can not
find data in the second partition? If so, it is normal since the SBS 2003
installation by default install all applications in the main partition.
If not, how you find there is no data in the drive? Through which interface
to find that?
£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½
If you don't like so many data on the main partition, you can take some
actions to move client programs folder, sharepoint database, monitor
database, and so on to different partition or drive.
You can refer to the following MS white paper to move data folders as you
want to:
Moving Data Folders for Windows Small Business Server 2003
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sbs/2003/maintain/movedata.mspx
830254 How to move the client programs folder to another location in Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=830254
821915 How to move Exchange databases and logs in Exchange Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=821915
£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½
The Volume Shadow Copy Service provides the backup infrastructure for the
Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating systems,
as well as a mechanism for creating consistent point-in-time copies of data
known as shadow copies.
Previous to the Volume Shadow Copy Service and its standard set of
extensible application programming interfaces (APIs), there was no standard
way to produce "clean" (uncorrupted) snapshots of a volume. Snapshots often
contained corruptions due to "torn writes" that required the use of
utilities such as Chkdsk.exe to repair. Torn writes occur when an unplanned
event (such as a power failure) prevents the system from completely writing
a block of data to disk. The Volume Shadow Copy Service APIs prevent torn
writes by enabling applications to flush partially committed data from
memory.
The Volume Shadow Copy Service has native support for creating consistent
shadow copies across multiple volumes, regardless of the snapshot
technology or application. The Volume Shadow Copy Service can produce
consistent shadow copies by coordinating with business applications,
file-system services, backup applications, fast recovery solutions, and
storage hardware. Several features in the Windows Server 2003 operating
systems use the Volume Shadow Copy Service, including Shadow Copies for
Shared Folders and Backup.
For more detail information about how to create shadow copy and how it
works:
What Is Volume Shadow Copy Service?
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/library/TechR
ef/3cf204e6-709a-4eb8-8cbc-ad9655de91ba.mspx
How Volume Shadow Copy Service Works
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/library/TechR
ef/2b0d2457-b7d8-42c3-b6c9-59c145b7765f.mspx
Storage Management Using Windows Server 2003 and Windows Storage Server
2003 Virtual Disk Service and Volume Shadow Copy Service
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/wss2003/techinfo/plandeploy/sto
rmgtusingvdsvss.mspx
£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½
To the change basic drive to dynamic drive question, when we change basic
drive to dynamic drive, data can not be lost in Windows 2003 OS. However if
we convert the dynamic disk to a basic disk, the data on the dynamic disk
will be lost. Therefore, please backup the data to a secure location such
as tape or network locations.
There should be no problem to convert Basic to Dynamic disk (note that
it''s a one-way change and you cannot convert back without reinstalling the
System.) However, a backup before doing anything big is still recommended.
Nothing beats a well prepared backup. :
The following article has more details:
HOW TO: Use the Disk Management Snap-in to Manage Basic and Dynamic Disks
in Windows Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;323442
Restrictions on Extending or Spanning Simple Volumes on Dynamic Disks
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;225551
To change a dynamic disk back to a basic disk
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/library/Serve
rHelp/2999d73d-4c49-45c6-96cb-ec6d7686317b.mspx
£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½£½
Hope above information helps! If you have any further concern on the issue
please let me know. I am happy to be assistance of you and look forward to
your reply!
Have a nice day!
Sincerely,
Jenny Wu
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 manner.
You can locate the newsgroup here:
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx
When opening a new thread via the web interface, we recommend you check the
"Notify me of replies" box to receive e-mail notifications when there are
any updates in your thread. When responding to posts via your newsreader,
please "Reply to Group" so that others may learn and benefit from your
issue.
Microsoft engineers can only focus on one issue per thread. Although we
provide other information for your reference, we recommend you post
different incidents in different threads to keep the thread clean. In doing
so, it will ensure your issues are resolved in a timely manner.
For urgent issues, you may want to contact Microsoft CSS directly. Please
check http://support.microsoft.com for regional support phone numbers.
Any input or comments in this thread are highly appreciated.
======================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--------------------
>Thread-Topic: Implementing a RAID 1 Array
>thread-index: AcXgJyfllbXsC64gSpGAvkg8XHZTCg==
>X-WBNR-Posting-Host: 69.137.237.26
>From: "=?Utf-8?B?RWQgUG9kb3dza2k=?=" <EdPodowski@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>References: <9E18DF84-AF05-4092-B25F-3DA843E4F30C@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<36fim11eq6smn8v4hnnq1ajo4pnjtscj7j@xxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: Implementing a RAID 1 Array
>Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 19:32:02 -0800
>Lines: 121
>Message-ID: <2FC8DFE0-317B-4E8A-A8D8-5FC47F5AC798@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="Utf-8"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>X-Newsreader: Microsoft CDO for Windows 2000
>Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message
>Importance: normal
>Priority: normal
>X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.3790.0
>Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs
>NNTP-Posting-Host: TK2MSFTNGXA03.phx.gbl 10.40.2.250
>Path: TK2MSFTNGXA01.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGXA03.phx.gbl
>Xref: TK2MSFTNGXA01.phx.gbl microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs:167151
>X-Tomcat-NG: microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs
>
>Andrew,
>
>Thank you for your response.
>
>I really did set up the hardware configuration and thought that was all I
>needed to do to set up the RAID 1 array. I did not find anything else in
the
>hardware documentation.
>
>I am using an ASUS K8N-DL [
>http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=671&l1=3&l2=17&l3=173
]
>server motherboard which supports dual AMD Opteron CPU and has a NVIDIA
>CK8-04 Professional chipset with support for 4 x SATA-II Gb/s drives in a
>RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 1+0 configurations.
>
>After all the hardware was connected as the computer was booting, I went
>into the NVIDIA set up and defined the RAID 1 array.
>
>After partitioning and installing the SBS 2003 operating system, the
second
>drive did not have any data. So I thought that I needed to do something
in
>SBS 2003. That is when I started to read the help screens.
>
>I went to ASUS web site but was unable to locate any further steps I
needed
>to take. I would prefer to set up the RAID 1 as defined by the hardware.
I
>think there are performance advantages as you mentioned to using the
hardware
>as opposed to SBS 2003. This is the reason for using this motherboard.
What
>step am I missing? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Thank you again for your time.
>Ed Podowski
>
>"Andrew Hodgson" wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 2 Nov 2005 11:24:08 -0800, "Ed Podowski"
>> <EdPodowski@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> >I have two questions relating to implementing a RAID 1 array. The
server is
>> >running Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard Edition with SP 2.
>> >
>> >System Setup Information
>> >
>> >I have two identical SATA hard drives. During the hardware setup, I
>> >configured the array management software and disk controller as a RAID
1
>> >array. When installing the operating system I partitioned Disk 0
[Basic]
>> >into two partitions: C drive 20GB and D drive 49GB. The drives was
formatted
>> >using NTFS. The operating system is on drive C and I assume because
this is
>> >Windows 2003 Server Family this may also be the boot volume. [During
set up
>> >I never specified anything different.] D drive has users shared
folders,
>> >shared applications, exchange store, client apps among other things.
>>
>> You conflicted yourself in this paragraph. First you said that you
>> configured the hardware side of things to run using a mirrored array,
>> then you say you did the granular partition setup using both disks.
>> If you had configured the array before you would only see one logical
>> disk in Windows setup.
>>
>> I have the same setup here, and I have the motherboard doing all the
>> array controler (probably not much faster than doing it using Windows,
>> but was easier and less painful) - I have an Intel chipset, and when
>> booting up the system, I can go into the array setup to create the
>> mirrored drive.
>>
>> If you have such a setup option when your system starts, you may be
>> able to set up the array this way, mirroring the contents of disk 1,
>> all data that was previously on disk 2 will be erased. Disk1 will
>> then mirror onto disk 2 as you go along. You shouldn't need to do any
>> fiddling in Windows, but it may be a good idea to ensure you have the
>> latest RAID drivers installed from the manufacturer - I had to ensure
>> I ran latest Intel drivers, as earlier versions caused SBS setup to
>> fail.
>>
>> Alternatively, convert the disk to a dynamic disk, and add mirroring
>> to each partition individually - see later.
>> >
>> [...]
>> >
>> >[Windows Help]
>> >Shadow copies storage area. If you are using a basic disk as a storage
area
>> >for shadow copies and you intend to convert the disk into a dynamic
disk, it
>> >is important to take the following precaution to avoid data loss. If
the disk
>> >is a non-boot volume and is a different volume from where the original
files
>> >reside, you must first dismount and take offline the volume containing
the
>> >original files before you convert the disk containing shadow copies to
a
>> >dynamic disk. You must bring the volume containing the original files
back
>> >online within 20 minutes, otherwise, you will lose the data stored in
the
>> >existing shadow copies. If the shadow copies are located on a boot
volume,
>> >you can convert the disk to dynamic without losing shadow copies.
>> >The disk or partition is a not the boot volume but is the same as where
the
>> >original files resides. Now what do I do? Can I disable the shadow
copies
>> >on volume D and wait 20 minutes before proceeding? I donâ??t need the
data in
>> >the existing shadow copy. Do I still have to dismount and take offline
this
>> >volume?
>>
>> Yes.
>> >
>> >Second Question
>> >I cannot find out what happens to the two partitions on Disk 0 when I
>> >convert from a basic drive to a dynamic drive? Are the partitions
>> >eliminated? What happens to the data on volume D in this scenario?
>>
>> They will be present still but are not mirrored. You will need to
>> mirror individually.
>> >
>> [...]
>> >
>> >Butâ?¦What about mirroring volume D where all the shared files and the
>> >exchange store is located? Do I follow the same procedure as in the
boot and
>> >system partition? Do I need to convert Disk 1 to a Dynamic drive and I
>> >assume that there are no partitions in Dynamic Drives? Is this correct?
>>
>> When you convert the disk to dynamic you will see the same partitions.
>> You just then need to mirror the partitions to the second disk.
>>
>> One other advantage to using a hardware type RAID setup is that if the
>> one disk fails, you don't have to mess with boot.ini files when you
>> want to boot from the second disk.
>>
>> Andrew.
>> --
>> Andrew Hodgson in Bromyard, Herefordshire, UK.
>> My Email: use <andrew at hodgsonfamily dot org>.
>>
>
.
- Prev by Date: Re: Second SBS server for testing
- Next by Date: RE: easy way to re-send a batch of emails from Outlook?
- Previous by thread: Re: SBS2003 STD - is it possible create a 2nd Instance ????
- Next by thread: Re: Implementing a RAID 1 Array
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
