Has Raid installed ok on our Dell 2900 server

[edutech4schools]

I have just installed server 2008R2 onto our old Dell PowerEdge 2900. Dell say the drivers are native in the OS and the install went without any issues, but when I view disk manager I get:

Disk 0 - System Reserve 100mb / 19gb unallocated

Disk 1 - 123mb unallocated

Disk 2 - c 51gb (NTFS, boot, pagefile...) / d 200gb

The system has 3 sas drives of 140gb each and seeing as disk 2 has more than that I would reason raid is ok but why do I get disk1,2,3 listed? On my other newer server I just get Disk 0

[Michael]

Dell are probably right - the drivers are native in 2008 R2 (many of them are), but you still need to create the RAID5 array using the RAID BIOS.

It would then display one drive to Windows. You shouldn't see 0, 1 and 2 like you describe - just disk 0 like your newer server.

[edutech4schools]

but you still need to create the RAID5 array using the RAID BIOS.

The server had server2003 and was using raid before. I assumed that had been setup correctly. I will have a look round the raid bios and see what's up when I get 5 mins.

[Michael]

It's possible it was using software RAID (controlled by 2003 Server) not something I would recommend. Hardware RAID is much better.

If you already were using hardware RAID, that would be a little strange. You could format the RAIDed disk and install Windows as new, but it would remain RAIDed without having to change anything.

[Michael]

Also (for your reference) creating a new hardware RAID array will destroy/delete existing partitions/drives/data, so backup anything critical first.

[edutech4schools]

In my bios I have 3 physical disks and 3 virtual disks. the 3 virtual disks have been allocated the space referenced in my first posts, so it was initially set up like this.

Should I have 1 virtual disk with the full size allocated?

[Michael]

Yes 3 physical and 1 virtual sounds right to me. I'm not sure how exactly you've ended up with 3 virtual disks.

You need at least 2 physical disks for RAID 0 or 1 and at least 3 physical disks for RAID5. Have you looked at the user manual for your server to verify how to create a RAID array.

[edutech4schools]

Have you looked at the user manual for your server to verify how to create a RAID array.

Just doing that.

[Michael]

Once you've created a single RAID5 array, during 2008 R2 setup you can create a volume of 50GB (for example) to install 2008 R2.

Once you're in 2008 R2, from Computer Management, you can then format the remaining space for data. The end result is a single RAID5 array, but with 2 or more volumes. You can also extend and shrink volumes in 2008 R2 which is a useful tool to have.

[edutech4schools]

@Michael

Thanks for you help. I have deleted all the drives and re created a single virtual drive.