COMPAQ RAID 5304 HELP

[Tobez]

Ok got a new ml370 g2 with a 5304 controller and 5 72 gig drives. I was going to config it as 2x drives mirrored and 3x drives on raid 5, with array 1 logical drives as 16 gig and 48 gig, and the array b as the full 138 gig. THIS SERVER IS GOING TO BE A NEW EXCHANGE ENTERPRISE BOX.

1. iS THAT SETUP OK OR WOULD YOU USE THE aDVANCED DATA GUARD THAT COME WITH THE 5304 or am i ok with what ive choosen.

2 also ive not set up a raid before but so far ive made array a and b ok with the correct drive etc, but for some reason win2k wont see it yet. ?????? Does the raid card have to initalise the drives etc and once its done that will i see them. What do i do once ive grouped and saved the config, ive made the logical drives etc, but i havnt formatted them as when i insert win2k it cant see any drives as of yet ??? anyone help ?

 

[Beaghler]

I've gotten burned on this too. If what I think is happening is really happening, you need to go into setup and set the array controller order so your controller is initialized first. It currently is probably 2nd or 3rd.
Use the SmartStart CD to set up the server. It should have been included with the machine. It'll walk you through the setup, also give you the opportunity to flash the BIOS to the latest, install the diagnostic partition, etc. It will also automatically bring up the array configuration utility.

I'm not sure if that controller will support the setup you envision. I think you'll need several channels and connections to the drives. I know others might disagree with me, but I would go with a straight RAID 5 with hot spare. That'll give you a total of about 215 Gb. (Hot spare will allow for safety, you can actually lose 2 drives before data loss) Make your "C" around 6 Gb and keep only your system files on it. Partition the rest as you see fit. Keep back some space for future expansion.

If I were setting up this box, I'd do it this way:
RAID 5 with hot spare on entire array, giving 215 Gb total space. 6 Gb "C" partition, installing only windows and other utilities. 50 Gb "D" for Exchange application, anti-virus, other utilities. 100-125 "E" for the Exchange storage, the rest un-allocated for future.

Use the Insight Manager utility that comes with the server, or download it. This will allow you to keep track of the server status from your workstation. It'll tell you if a drive, fan, memory, etc is failing before you would know it any other way.

Good Luck
Steve

 

[Tobez]

yeah i think ive sussed it, i did the raid 5 and 1 and then inserted the win2k cd, i had to F6 it and install the 5304 specific driver and it then saw the drives ok.


thing is it installs the win2k files fine but when it reboots i cant get the drives to boot, im gonna check the bios tomm and see if its that.

if ne1 has any more pointers please feel free.

thanks again

 

[sdandersonjr]

ADG is kind of like RAID 4 (all parity on one disk) PLUS another disk dedicated to Parity. Performance hit on writes but you can lose two disks (like RAID 5 + spare). You don't need any more connections or anything. You will only get about 200GB total. I would setup the whole thing as one partition at the controller and carve it when you install 2K.

The rest of the above partition ideas are valid.

My two cents...