Question on RAID servers

dark_hag666 · 15 Jan 2008 at 02:36

I've been debating now for quite a while, whether to built myself a server. It'd be either FreeNAS or WHS based but one thing has always put me off.

Assuming you have your boot drive and then, say, 2 big drives in RAID 1; your safe if one of the drive in RAID dies. But what if the boot drive fails, if you reinstalled the OS on a new drive would it detect the array?

Glass · 15 Jan 2008 at 07:14

if its a hardware raid the you should be okay, if it's software raid array then you might have issues. Take a ghost image of the OS disk and put it on a DVDR. If it does fail you'll just need to restore from your DVDR.

fobose · 15 Jan 2008 at 07:17

Could you not put the OS on the RAID 1 partition aswell? Make a seperate partition?

dark_hag666 · 15 Jan 2008 at 09:29

I am talking about software RAID, Glass; this would mean the OS would have to be installed before the array was made.

As for making an image; I had though of that. Does anyone know if the following approach would be the easiest, or if it would work at all for that matter.

1. Install OS (FreeNAS for example) on disk 1
2. Set up the RAID array on disks 2 & 3
3. Take disk 1 and put it in my main rig (obviously not as the boot drive)
4. Make an image of the drive in Acronis, or another similar program, to be archived on a couple of DVDs
5. Put disk 1 back in server and proceed to file the RAID array up.

By the way, I assume the MBR (or what ever it is called) is locate on the disks of the array and not on the OS disk.

Kamakazie! · 15 Jan 2008 at 11:45

Surely just build a server that has hardware raid. Pretty much every new mobo comes with it and otherwise you can get additional systems that plug in to pci or pcie slots.

dark_hag666 · 16 Jan 2008 at 02:25

I thought motherboard based RAIDs were all software, not hardware.

fobose · 16 Jan 2008 at 04:29

I have only set up RAID on two motherboards RAID controllers and they are both done before the windows setup

dark_hag666 · 16 Jan 2008 at 05:48

Okay then, thanks. Will have to spec myself a rig up, and see if I have space in another room to house it.

Snapshot · 16 Jan 2008 at 06:04

fobose said:
I have only set up RAID on two motherboards RAID controllers and they are both done before the windows setup

But they still needed drivers for the OS to be able to use them, didn't they? The problem with something like FreeNAS is that it won't have those drivers as it's based on a cut-down Linux.

@dark_hag666: I agree with Glass - take a Ghost image of the OS drive once everything is set up. Doesn't matter how the RAID was created, the data is in the image.

dark_hag666 · 16 Jan 2008 at 06:25

That's what I originally thought Snapshot.

PhillyDee · 16 Jan 2008 at 07:53

If you use WHS, then its a type of software raid. If the system drive fails (And you have more than one drive), then you can reinstall the os (And choose server reinstall or something similar mode - new installation formats all disks) and it will pick up all the files and folders. So they are not lost.

dark_hag666 · 16 Jan 2008 at 18:06

And FreeNAS anyone? I think I'm going to go the easy route anyway and get an IcyBox NAS; keep the spare parts I've may have used in the server for a workstation

fobose · 16 Jan 2008 at 20:46

Snapshot said:
But they still needed drivers for the OS to be able to use them, didn't they? The problem with something like FreeNAS is that it won't have those drivers as it's based on a cut-down Linux.

Good point

Kamakazie! · 16 Jan 2008 at 22:57

Snapshot said:
But they still needed drivers for the OS to be able to use them, didn't they? The problem with something like FreeNAS is that it won't have those drivers as it's based on a cut-down Linux.

No for the last one i set up, but then that was using Vista so maybe that is why. I thought it was all hardware RAID, at least on the nVidia motherboards.