Windows Server 2008 R2 & RAID

Soldato
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12 Dec 2003
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I'm currently trying to work out if I need a separate SATA/hardware RAID card or not for my (as yet unbuilt) home server.
I plan on having 3 disks initially, appearing as one large drive, and then possibly adding a 4th disk if I need more space. Can Windows Server 2008 R2 do this without any hardware RAID? Or am I better off using a Ubuntu server?

Thanks
 
If all I want to do is run 3 disks as 1 large drive (with the ability to add another disk in the future) is RAID 0 the best way to accomplish that or would I be better off using JBOD/SPAN?
 
Well all the server is just going to be used for storing backups, nothing else. Having it as 1 disk just seemed easier than pointing different backups to different disks.
Since its just backups, if they get lost its no big deal because I can replace the disk and re-backup again.

I need a PCI SATA card because the mini ITX motherboard I'm thinking of getting only has 2 SATA ports and I need 5 total.
 
Well currently I have
- 1x 1TB drive with critical stuff on it. Only backed up by RAID1.
- 2x 2TB media drives. No backups.

So I suppose instead of RAID0/SPAN I could just use 1 backup drive for each of these 3 data drives, I never really considered RAID0/SPAN to be a risky way of doing it but now you mention it I've reconsidered :p.

I would however need another 3 SATA ports as the motherboard only has 2. Would any old £10 PCI SATA card work for that or would I still need a more expensive one to get best performance?
 
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