RAID5 on this server??? 2

[goombawaho]

I'm having a disagreement with a new customer. Customer claims he paid for a server with RAID5 from the old IT guy. I have not been able to reboot the server to do a CTRL-I to look at the RAID configuration yet.

But based on the attached picture, is there any chance this server has RAID5? I keep saying to myself - NO!!!!
Looks like one disk for the O.S. and D: drive and another disk for backup only.
It's Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials running on an Intel DH87MC motherboard.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[rclarke250]

Sure doesn't look like it has Raid anything, IRST driver loaded? If it is, you could look at what it has to say.

 

[cdogg]

Actually, if it's a hardware RAID (meaning it's managed outside of Windows by a standalone RAID controller), then under Disk Management, it will only show up as one physical disk per array, usually as type "Basic". So what you're seeing would be normal in that situation.

This goes into more detail of how to tell from within Windows:

http://serverfault.com/questions/53368/how-to-check-if-hardware-raid-is-configured

If signs point to hardware RAID, then yeah, rebooting and checking for the RAID controller prompt (e.g. CTRL-C) at startup is going to be your best bet for seeing more detail on it.



-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

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[strongm]

As cdogg says, if this is a hardware raid then your picture is exactly how it might look in Windows. And the Intel DH87MC certainly supports hardware RAID.

 

[rclarke250]

Does it have 4 more 250Gb hdd's plus the 250 boot drive? That would mean there is no sata connector for an optical drive. boot drive is 250Gb, the only way 3 or more drives would yield 931.51Gb is 4 250 GB drives, and you need at least 3 drives for a raid 5. Unless there is a raid card, then it would show in device manager, also, the model number of the drives for a physical drive would show in device manager along with the drive serial number if it were a single drive. Or an extra sata board to drive any other devices would also show in device manager.

 

[goombawaho]

I know - the best way to check is to reboot and invoke the RAID controller setup OR crack it open, but I haven't been able to do that yet because it's been during business hours.

FreePCAudit shows this for hard drive info. Only one drive is listed with a model number (the backup drive), which is strange. Does "logical drive" indicate RAID. I'm not stupid on this stuff, but I've never had to reverse engineer it. I always knew what I was dealing with because I built it or installed it.

Disk: ST1000DM003-1CH162 (931.5 GB)
Caption: ST1000DM003-1CH162
Serial number: S1DCYGR2
Size: 931.5 GB
Manufacturer: (Standard disk drives)
Interface type: SCSI
Media type: Fixed hard disk media
Bytes per sector: 512
Heads: 255
Cylinders: 121601
Sectors: 1953520065
Tracks: 31008255
Disk: Volume1 (232.9 GB)
Caption: Volume1
Serial number: Volume1
Size: 232.9 GB
Manufacturer: (Standard disk drives)
Interface type: SCSI
Media type: Fixed hard disk media
Bytes per sector: 512
Heads: 255
Cylinders: 30400
Sectors: 488376000
Tracks: 7752000
Logical drive: C: (Local Fixed Disk; size: 60.0 GB; free space: 7.0 GB; file system: NTFS)
Name: C:
Description: Local Fixed Disk
Size: 60.0 GB
Free space: 7.0 GB
File system: NTFS
Serial number: 2CFCB112
Network path:
Logical drive: D: (Local Fixed Disk; size: 172.8 GB; free space: 150.7 GB; file system: NTFS)
Name: D:
Description: Local Fixed Disk
Size: 172.8 GB
Free space: 150.7 GB
File system: NTFS
Serial number: BE03BB0D
Network path:
Logical drive: E: (CD-ROM Disc)
Name: E:
Description: CD-ROM Disc
Size:
Free space:
File system:
Serial number:
Network path:
CD-ROM: ASUS DRW-24F1ST a (DVD Writer)
Name: ASUS DRW-24F1ST a
Media type: DVD Writer
Manufacturer: (Standard CD-ROM drives)
Drive: E:


"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[strongm]

>That would mean there is no sata connector
The Intel DH87MC has 6 SATA connectors

And 3 x 500GB drives would give 1Tb RAID 5 capacity - but as you are no doubt aware that's in HDD manufacturer units who use the metric variant with 1000 bytes per MB and 1000 megabytes per Gb, whilst Server Manager uses the IEC binary version using 1024.

So we have 1000GB * (1000 * 1000)/(1024 * 1024) => 954GiB, which is pretty much what Server Manager is showing us.

 

[strongm]

>ST1000DM003-1CH162

Ah. Well, looks like you don't have hardware RAID. That's a 1TB Seagate Barracuda.

 

[cdogg]

The 1TB drive is just a single drive, no RAID. It is still possible, however, that the 2nd disk listed (232.9 GB), which only says "Volume 1", is a RAID array. No real identification listed for that, which would make sense if it was.

 

[goombawaho]

The 1TB drive is just a single drive, no RAID.

Yep, I knew that as it matches what is in the Disk Management for the backup drive.

I'll just have to break down and reboot the thing and/or crack it open. I'll let y'all know.

The Intel DH87MC has 6 SATA connectors

So, theoretically it could have 3 HDD (RAID5) + 1 HDD no RAID backup drive + Optical drive all connected to mobo. Plenty of ports available. That point is moot however if there was a discrete RAID card installed.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[goombawaho]

Okay. So, unexpectedly, I had the opportunity to shut down the server yesterday. It is a RAID1. If I had taken another Device Manager shot (below), I would have concluded "some type of RAID", but I wouldn't have known which.

Thanks for everyone helping me think about this. Next question to hijack my own thread. I want to install Intel Rapid Storage Technology app on this server so I can see the RAID status within Windows. But, SBS 2011 Essentials is not listed under any of the downloads on this page.
Link

But, wouldn't I just install the version for Server 2008 because that's what SBS 2011 is underneath? I just don't want to frog this guys server up. Thoughts?

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[goombawaho]

Plus think link doesn't list it.
Link

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[rclarke250]

Yep, single 1 TB Seagate HDD.

It has 5 sata connectors. Here is from the manual.

1.5.3
SATA Interfaces
The board provides five SATA connectors,
through the PCH, which support one device
each
.
The PCH provides independent SATA ports with a theoretical maximum transfer rate of
6.0Gb/s.
A point-to-point interface is used for host to device connections.
The PCH supports the Serial ATA Specification, Revision 3.0. The PCH also supports
several optional sections of the Serial ATA II: Extensions to Serial ATA 1.0
Specification, Revision 1.0 (AHCI support is required for some elements).
For more information,

 

[cdogg]

But, wouldn't I just install the version for Server 2008 because that's what SBS 2011 is underneath?

Yes, that's correct. Install the version that's compatible with Server 2008 R2. I think this is the one you want (I looked up the mobo on Intel's site):

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...ge-Technology-Driver-for-Intel-Desktop-Boards

 

[strongm]

>1.5.3
>SATA Interfaces


Bizarre.

http://ark.intel.com/products/69045/Intel-Desktop-Board-DH87MC

definitely quotes 6 SATA ports. As does

http://motherboards.specout.com/l/947/Intel-DH87MC

Presumably because one of the ports is delivered as mSATA.

 

[goombawaho]

I don't know about installing that. Why would Intel not list the SBS operating system explicitly as being compatible. Best way to tick off a new customer - crash his server!!!!

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[cdogg]

That's because technically it's not an OS. It's a GUI running on top of an OS. You could always call them to be sure, or clone the System drive prior to installing.

Also as a side note, the installer should be checking to make sure the OS is compatible prior to installing the software. It shouldn't continue if it identifies an issue.

 

[goombawaho]

Ok good point about it being a GUI wrapper but.... That looks like only the DRIVER for RST and I'm looking to install the GUI manager (Intel Rapid Technology GUI) so that I can see the health of the RAID.

The other downloads are like setuprst.exe Maybe I'm just overly worried.

When you say "clone system drive", you may be close to what I need to do. The C: drive is nearly full. Thinking of using Macrium Server to clone to new RAID1 with larger drives. Fun times.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[cdogg]

The readme.txt says in section 6 that the RST application (or GUI) is part of the installation. Come to think of it, I can't remember ever running an RST setup that didn't include the GUI.

Once installed, you probably won't see it running in the system tray until after a reboot.

 

[goombawaho]

Final paranoid question: There's not a problem with the setup installing a RAID driver and having a mismatch with the BIOS and registry is there? Because the BIOS has to be in RAID mode right now and thus requires the RAID driver and RAID registry entry.

In other words, there's not a mismatch between AHCI mode and RAID mode between the BIOS and the registry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStorV]
"Start"=dword:00000000

If that's mismatched, you get a blue screen upon reboot.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.