ianto39
asked on
Disk mirroring with Intel Matrix raid vs Windows OS level.
I'm installing W2k Server on a new machine that has Intel Matrix Raid and 2 SATA Drives. I want to use mirrored drives (RAID1) for max recoverability if a drive dies. In the past, on machines without the Matrix RAID, I've setup the mirroring at the Windows level (ie create a partition on each drive then use Disk Management to create the mirror). I'm assuming that the general idea is that it's better to create the mirror at the BIOS/Matrix level (faster and Windows has less to do). Also, presumably Windows will only see 1 drive and the fact that there are really 2 physical drives that are being mirrored is handled out of sight to Windows.
So my (2-part) question is:
1. Should I install the machine using the Matrix RAID setup to handle the mirroring, or do it the old way and create the mirror in Windows?
2. In the past, when a drive died I've been able to just remove the dead one (even it wasn't the primary) and Windows booted ok, then later I could pop in a new drive, recreate the mirror and all was well. Should recovery still work like this with the Matrix RAID setup.
So my (2-part) question is:
1. Should I install the machine using the Matrix RAID setup to handle the mirroring, or do it the old way and create the mirror in Windows?
2. In the past, when a drive died I've been able to just remove the dead one (even it wasn't the primary) and Windows booted ok, then later I could pop in a new drive, recreate the mirror and all was well. Should recovery still work like this with the Matrix RAID setup.
ASKER
Thanks Jay, so does Windows just see 1 hard drive?
Is everything necessary for Windows to boot up stored on each mirrored drive, MBR's etc, so recovery can be fast and straightforward.
-i
Is everything necessary for Windows to boot up stored on each mirrored drive, MBR's etc, so recovery can be fast and straightforward.
-i
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hardware raid any day of the week! windows mirroring is ok but i would never take it over hardware raid
basically the same recovery concept yes, you just have to configure it in the RAID BIOS