Rebuilding Raid 1 ?

Scooby-DoobyDoo · 30 Nov 2006 at 18:13

Hi we have a server at work that has 2 hard drive in it. I have looked in disc management and they are mirrored but one has failed. This is confirmed on a reboot as it comes up not detected.

They are both 20gb's with partitions. I have a new 80gb that I wish to put in. Size isnt that important as they have only filled up a few gbs in 5 years.

My questions are:

1. Is it just a case of inserting the drive and windows detecting new drive and rubuilding array or do I need to tell it to in disk management.

2. Once the 80gb drive is in and mirrored again, is it possible to just get another 80gb to put in ?

Thanks if you can help, its not a main server really more of a file backup server and as the man who knows a little about IT they have asked me if I can sort it. Im pretty good on XP / building PCs, but dont want to mess up this raid on the works server.

Thanks in advance.

img · 30 Nov 2006 at 19:03

is it actualy using windows for mirroring? usually it would be using a raid card.

Scooby-DoobyDoo · 30 Nov 2006 at 19:59

Yes it looks like its using windows 2000 server.

Is a bit of a cheap server with an P3 800 and a via motherboard.

Hoping to get it going and build/buy a new one eventually.

rpstewart · 30 Nov 2006 at 20:31

It's been a while since I messed about with fault tolerant volumes in Windows so this might be a bit off...

Windows does the mirroring at a partition level so once the failed drive has been replaced you need to go back into disk management and tell it to rebuild the mirror. It should then ask you where you want it to mirror to, so tell it to use unpartitioned space on the 80Gb and that should be it. You'll also be able to use the remaining ~60Gb as another partition.

If you want to stick in another 80Gb drive then just follow the process above again, you could even convert the extra 60Gb partition into a second mirror if you want.

Nick Xero · 30 Nov 2006 at 20:44

depends on what server it is and if it is under warrenty. You'll find that most Server vendors will not support putting different drives onto the same array.

Also, if you have 1x 20GB drive and 1x 80GB drive, in a R1 mirror, then the 80GB drive will back down to 20GB and the rest of the space will effectively be lost.

this is assuming that you're mirroring on the hardware level.

Jay_t · 4 Dec 2006 at 12:14

Personally I'd be inclined to back up the 20 Gb drive and rebuild the array with 2 new identical hard drives. Ideally buy 3, so that if one fails in the future you have one ready to go. If you are trying to be really secure buy the 3 identical drives from 3 different suppliers just in case there is a bad batch floating around.