Re: Help! - No usable space, but plenty of unallocated space!!

I assumed that because the poster mentioned dynamic disks that he/she was
running software RAID1 on the server. May have been a bad assumption on my
part.

--
Merv Porter [SBS-MVP]
============================

"dvw" <dan(removethis)@westerveltconsulting.com> wrote in message
news:%23RGKvUV7GHA.5020@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Merv, if he has hardware Raid 1, are you sure he needs to make the D
partition dynamic and mirror it? Isn't the entire drive already mirrored
automatically by the hardware Raid controller?

"Merv Porter [SBS-MVP]" <mwport@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%231NWxtU7GHA.2120@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The RAID1 configuration you have is for "redundancy" (duplication of
data). The secondary drive is an exact copy of the primary drive. In
this case, since you only have the C: partition formatted, the secondary
drive holds an exact copy of the 9 GB C: partition that's on hte primary
drive. If one drive goes down, the other will take over so you can keep
your server going until you troubleshoot and implement a fix. This is a
good thing. :-)

Your backup scheme (to an external hard drive or to tape) is a form of
disaster recovery in case your Windows operating system gets screwed up
or the something else goes wrong with your server that requires a
reinstall of the Operating System or a file/folder. You should run
multiple backups and these can/should be rotated offsite for safety
against theft, fire, flood and attack by ravenous ardvaarks. This is a
another good thing. :-)

If you have SBS 2003, running the SBS Backup Wizard from the Server
Management console will also implement Shadow Copies which takes
"snapshots" of designated drives (drive letters) and allows you and your
users to easily restore deleted or inadvertently modified files/folders.
Yet another good thing. :-)

Now, if you go into Disk Management and click on the unallocated space on
the primary drive and format it, a second parition called "D:" will be
created and that D: partition then contain 35 GB of free space. You can
then choose to make that partition "dynamic" and mirror it to the 35 GBs
of unallocated space on the secondary drive. You really do want to do
this so you can maintain your level of "redundancy".

Then, assuming you have SBS 2003, you can move User Folders, Exchange
databases, etc. to the D: partition to free up more space on the C:
partition.

Moving Data Folders for Windows Small Business Server 2003 (download the
Word doc)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sbs/2003/maintain/movedata.mspx

--
Merv Porter [SBS-MVP]
============================

<janefield2002@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1160579716.595058.14500@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi All,

I have an IBM eServer (x series) running Windows 2003 server which has
2 SCSI drives and I think there is a hardware RAID implementation (Dont

know what that means, but I understand that there is only ONE drive
letter - C: and both hard disks are exact copies).


Each hard disk is about 35GB, giving me a total of 70GB. Now, when I
look at the available space on C:, it says that the total space is 9GB,

of which 7GB is used, leaving 2GB available. Thus, my total space is
effectively just 9GB!! When I look at the hard disk through "Disk
Management" under computer management, I see "unallocated space" is 26
GB or so.

Now, I have the following questions:
1. How do I use this "unallocated" 26 GB? This means I would have a
total of 35GB at my disposal... including the 9GB I am currently
using... (it says something about creating a dynamic disk) but I dont
want to back things up and I want the "safest" and "easiest" way to use

the 26 GB.
2. Ideally, I would NOT like duplication of the data on the 2 disks,
but would prefer if it was trested as a single drive letter of the FULL

70GB. Is this possible?


Thanks!







.

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