Hardisk partition

  • Thread starter Thread starter Carlos
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C

Carlos

Hi,

I'm using HP Proliant DL series server.

When I prepare my server, I have this questions

a) should I create single (1) logical drive only = 72GB and then partition
it in Win2K disk management

b) should I create multiple (3) logical drives (c, d, e) within the array
controller

- 1 big logical drive vs 3 logical drives

- am i right to say that the partitions within the array controller is
faster than Win2K partition

- by the way, when i create multiple logical drives, it gives me 1 basic + 2
dynamic volume.

Thanks
 
Hello,

I am an advocate of establishing RAID Arrays "at the hardware level" in
your case using the HP Smary Array Controller you must have. This way the
disk array overhead is managed by the hardware and not your Windows Operating
system. Plus you paid a large chunk for the Smart Array controler...you may
as well use it for its intended purpose. I am also taking for granted you
have at least 3 identical drive that you will use to establish a truly
functional RAID 5 (striping with parity) disk Array or at least 2
identical drives to establish a RAID 1 ( Mirrored) disk array.

After you use your HP NetRaid Utility to set the arrays up....when you go
into windows you will see essentially 1 big disk....then you will use Windows
Disk Mgr to define your partitions and drives at this stage you will not
use this Windows utility to establish/define mirroring or
striping.......just you boot/system voluem (Drive c:) and any other "data"
drives

If you have only one disk....... then you may as well just set it up as a
plain single disk on the controller and then use Windows disk mgr to
establish your partitions and drives since you have no real fault
tolerance(mirrored pair or striped set) that you can implement at the
harwarelevel

This is kinda high level overview and I might not be the biggest expert
out here....but that is how I do my standard setups.....I usually have at
least 6 drives....I use my Controller utility to define a mirrored ( Raid 1)
set for my boot/system/windows volume ( drive c: ) then setup up the rest as
a RAID5 Array with an "online hot spare " ( then use Disk Manager to
define the Drives you wnat to have on the RAID 5 Array...this Array wil
appears as 1 big disk....you could format it and assign Drive letter E: or
divy it up into smaller dirves..... but it will still be managed at the
hardware level as a RAID5 array by your HP Controller)
 
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