RAID question

Jeff Blair · 06-20-2003, 08:10 AM

I need to set up a RAID. I have a 160gig and a 20gig drive. I was hopeing I could partition the 160 to match the size of the 20, and then mirror it. I will be running Win2k server. Can I do this? thanks a lot.

Tekara · 06-20-2003, 08:32 AM

it won't be a good option for you, if you set up a mirror array with two mismatched drives the resulting size of the array will be equal to the size of the smallest hardrive. in your case, your mirrored array will be 20GB.

I know you are hoping to partition off only 20GB from the 160GB drive and use the rest as you see fit, but it won't really work that way. although the raid functions in windows may allow you to actually do this since it will appear to windows as two independant drives, I am unfamiliar with this route so I cannot say.

as things stand, I believe your best bet is to partition off the 20GB and use a program like norton ghost and set it to automatically do a full backup during the hours you normally sleep.

This route will work just fine for you since the main benefit of a mirrored array over just a straight copy is that when one HDD in the array fails there is no downtime as the other will instantly resume. unless you need this kind of protection you should be fine with the daily backup.

best of luck.

06-20-2003, 12:56 PM

You can do this if you're talking about the "software RAID" of Windows 2000 Server. If you use a hardware RAID controller, you should use identical drives for a mirror (2 x 20GB or 2 x 160GB, of like make/model).

Jeff Blair · 06-20-2003, 01:07 PM

Hey there Colin, long time no talk.

That is what I was hopeing. I am going to use the "Soft" RAID in Win2k server. I have Partition Magic just in case I have to resize it again. Wish me luck.

Steve_Ch · 06-20-2003, 01:54 PM

This is kind of a side question, I used W2K on my laptop and XP on my desktop, I understand that XP cannot address drive bigger than 137G until SP1. Now I don't plan on having anything remotely that large on my laptop, but are there similar size restriction on W2K (I am pretty sure it did, just not sure if there still are) ?

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Ken Chan · 06-20-2003, 04:21 PM

If you know the keywords "48-bit lba 2000", it's easy to find the answer

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Steve_Ch · 06-20-2003, 07:13 PM

Thanks Ken, better to have somebody find it and just give me the link

..

Jeff Blair · 06-21-2003, 06:49 AM

well, I guess that solved one of my questions. I was wondering if I should have the new drive, or the old drive as the main one. The new one has a 8meg buffer, and is ATA100. The old one I think may be ATA66. But, if it will only see 149 until I get SP3 on there, then I might as well put it on the 20gig, and use the other as the mirror. Thanks for all the help y'all.

Steve_Ch · 06-21-2003, 08:01 PM

>> if it will only see 149 until I get SP3 <<

Jeff, I think (pretty sure) the size demarcation is 137G.