RAID on dell server

[Jackd]

How would i put the drives on a dell poweredge 6300 in a raid array?

Theres nothing in the BIOS and the utility partition doesnt work, on the SCSI Select utility theres nothing so how do i do it?

 

Thanks

Jack

[Ric_]

If the server is hardware RAID-enabled, following POST you will get a prompt from the RAID controller to allow you to configure it.

 

I think you can also configure PERC controllers during the OS install if you use the magical discs supplied with the server.

[torledo]

How would i put the drives on a dell poweredge 6300 in a raid array?

Theres nothing in the BIOS and the utility partition doesnt work, on the SCSI Select utility theres nothing so how do i do it?

 

Thanks

Jack

 

Hardware RAID HBA is an optional extra on the 6300. So it appears you haven't got the card in you're system therefore the drives are connected to a plain jane SCSI backplane.

 

The only way to do RAID in that case is in software in the OS.

 

Have a read of the PE 6300 it's available from the Dell support website to familiarise yourself with the hardware.

[Nexarius]

If your 6300 does lack hardware RAID, then remember 2000/2003 has software RAID support built in. Not quite as efficient, but does the job!

[Jackd]

Right, settled for software raid on 2k3, would of prefered hardware but nevermind.

 

Jack

[Nexarius]

Are you running RAID 1 or RAID 0?

 

I've used software RAID 1 on 2k3 and noticed slightly increased read speed, but writes are a bit slower.

 

The only problems I've found are the boot sector not being correctly mirrored (so can only boot off drive 0, except that failed so now booting off floppy disk!), and the fact Windows will resync the drives if you shut down improperly, which can take a long time and absolutely cripples server performance.

[Jackd]

RAID-5, the OS is on a seperate drive thats not raid'ed so its fine, only want the essential data raid'ed