Installation of Win2003 server and RAID questions

[Ben79]

I'm about to make a clean installation of Windows 2003/2008.

I have a 3xHD's in one RAID currently running raid 5 or 10.
+1 HD currently running as "swap file" only disk.

Now to my questions.

Since the whole windows installation is running on the raid config. I guess this is not optimal due to fragmentation, as well as security

Is there any problems to install windows completely on the solo hdd. And have all my users data on the raid disks?

My initial install on this servers RAID was made with Dell management CD (not sure about the exact name of the program atm). The server is a Dell Poweredge 1800. And it was almost 4 years ago I touched the installation for the server as well as the RAID disks... :S

Regards

Ben

 

[58sniper]

I guess this is not optimal due to fragmentation, as well as security

or performance and stability.

Is there any problems to install windows completely on the solo hdd.

Not if you want it to work. The exception might be a DC/GC in a small environment (where the directory partitions don't get monster-sized).

Putting anything on a single spindle is suicide. I don't even build lab servers that way. RAID 1 at minimum.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[Ben79]

That was a fast answer

Putting anything on a single spindle is suicide. I don't even build lab servers that way. RAID 1 at minimum.

You got a good point there. And these days RAID with 2 disks is not that expensive.

However can I use two different RAID controllers in one system?
The one in my server is named CERC SATA RAID Controller 6 Channels. (Dont know if that means anything useful for those whithout a Dell server.)

If not can I split my RAID? For example.

Raid1 = 2 HD -> Windows system C:
Raid2 = 3 HD -> Users data

Regards

Ben

 

[58sniper]

You can have as many RAID controllers in a system as you want (provided the PCI slots, of course).

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[Ben79]

Thank you for your posts!
It will help me alot...

Ben