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Does the raid controller on Dell Servers work out of the box?
I have a client who ordered a Dell Poweredge T100 server with a Raid 1 controller and twin 500 GB hard drives. They ordered it bare though with no operating system. They went ahead and set it up themselves and just installed the OS. They sent me a question today regarding RAID and any setup required. Does anyone happen to know if any of the included software needs to be installed that Dell may ship with the machine or will the hardware Raid work right out of the box and just mirror with whatever OS you install?
Thanks in advance for any replies.
Thanks in advance for any replies.
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You might need a driver for the OS install but if the OS installed fine, you should be good to go, most of the dell "tools" are crap.
If you have a RAID controller then definitely yes you can go ahead and configure RAID after installing OS, or else download raid controller tools from dell website to create hardware RAID,
PS: HW RAID is better than SW
PS: HW RAID is better than SW
If the hardware RAID isnt setup and the O/S is installed then you cant simply change it to hardware RAID1 afterwards, it would need a reinstall
ASKER
Thanks for the replies guys. Here is the situation, it was ordered with Raid 1 configuration from Dell. What I mean is, because it was ordered with no operating system, should anything need to be done prior to the OS install to configure RAID or should it come already configured and if you install the OS you are good to go?
IF dell have set the RAID up and you do the insatll then, as long as Windows picked up the driver for the PERC card, all will be good to go
ASKER
Would it have given a message if Windows did not pick up the driver for the PERC card?
It wouldnt have installed Windows without the driver as it wouldnt have been able to see the disk otherwise
ASKER
It wouldn't have seen both disks via the PERC I know that, but wouldn't it still be able to see one disc just not as an array? I might not be relaying that perfectly, sorry it's a hectic morning.
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ASKER
Thanks guys, I went ahead and launched the PERC configuration tool upon boot-up and verified it is indeed running Raid 1. Thanks!