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geeksinsneaks

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Software solution for RAID on DELL Poweredge SC430

Hello.

I recently purchased a DELL Poweredge SC430 with two 160GB SATA drives. However, I have no RAID sotware so i am assuming that I forgot to purchase the 39320A SCSI INT Controller Card while building the system. So i have two 160GB Drives and no way to RAID mirror them. I was wondering if there was a solution to this, or if i need to call back DELL and order the Controler Card. LEt me know. Thanks!

Adam
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Lee W, MVP
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geeksinsneaks

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Thanks. I'll give it a try.
ok.

Disk 0 right now is 149GB. Has a C: partition (12GB) and an E: partition(136.88GB)

Disk 1 149GB and it says unallocated.

If i right click on disk 1 all the options i have are New partition, Properties and help.
Did you convert the disk to Dynamic?  See the link I provided.
i am formatting it now then i will try to do so. Thanks for the help so far
What are you formatting?  You don't format.  

Here's a couple more links:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=323432&SD=tech
Sorry. This is also windows 2003 Small business server. That shouldnt make a difference should it?
ok. I think i have it. I was right clicking the wrong spot, not the grey wrea. I should be ok. Ill close it out and award my points as soon as this is done formatting. It was unallocated, so i created a partition, and its formatting now.
Buy a pci 32/64 raid controler from 3ware. The one we bought was only $100

A quick search on newegg shows this one for $150

3ware 80062LPKIT PCI SATA Controller Card
ok. well I just reformatted and re-installed the OS. Im back to disk management.

Disk 0 right now is basic. Primary partition. In this it shows (C:) 14.65 GB healthy. New Volume (F:) 134.33 GB Healthy
Disk 1 149.01 GB Unallocated.

HEre is the thing, and why i had to reformat before. I need to or make the mirror of Disk 0, which contains the C and F drive. OS files are on the c. So if i try right click on the Disk 0 and make that dynamic, i get a pop up saying "After you convert these disks to dynamic, you will not be able to start other installed Operating systems from any volume on these disks." So im kinda stuck in a rut here. I looked at the MS documentation and it says that the windows and system boot files must reside on the same volume which is to be mirrored. Kinda confused. Thanks for the help so far.
go buy a $150 sata raid controler like the one i sugested.

Do you not want a hardware raid miror? ... you can have 2 raid controlers in a single server.
Well, i was wondering if there was a software solution i could go by, rather than buying the hardware. If i have to buyu the hardware, then i will. But if a software solution will work then i will go with that.
software raid is really iffy .... i would not touch it ...
I was able to convert the disk to dynamic and then mirror it. I could only do this by re-installing the OS and only creating one partition (C:). Then the mirroring worked. It wouldnt work or i didnt even have an option when there was the D: partition on the same disk.
thanks for all your help!