My latest project involves a Dell Poweredge 1800 Tower.
It has an Intel Xeon 3.0 Ghz Processor with 4GB of RAM. It came with a SATA RAID controller with 3 x 250GB 10k SATA drives in a RAID 5 configuration. Now like most people playing with old hardware i wanted to run Server 2008 R2 with some room for expansion to include Exchange 2010 and maybe OCS 2010. However the OS would not install on the Array. I added the RAID controller drivers but the O/S Installation would not show the array as a possible location to install the O/S.

So i removed 1 HDD from the array and connected it to the SATA on board controller. I installed Server 2008 R2 successfully and installed the Dell Open-Manage software. This told me that my SATA RAID controller was in need of a firmware upgrade which i applied using the Rev 02 as the initial one failed to work. Once the O/S was online i installed the SATA RAID controller drivers and added 3 x 1TB SATA Drives in RAID 5.

The process of creating this array is taking forever. Even now, 3 hours later, the percentage is at 3. 3% complete and any attempts to copy data to this array mean slowing that down and a crippling 3MB/s transfer rate.

*Update* the raid build took a total of 4 days.This was made worse by the fact that when i try transfer files to the array i get a minuscule 5MB/s. This combined with the fact that i have no other SATA Raid card to use other than the on board one in my PC means i am retiring this project as a file server/central storage.

Instead i installed AD on the server and exchange 2010 which was surprisingly fast. In my attempts to install Sharepoint 2010 i ran into errors that are due to low server specs, lack of RAM and CPU and most likely slow HDD. While the server takes DDR2 it will not boot with standard desktop ram. I’m going to keep looking for an alternative setup, perhaps another desktop PC second hand with a SATA Intel Raid controller on the motherboard, should be simple enough with a dual/quad core to keep it quiet which is after all the main reason for not leaving the array in my desktop since that is water cooled and I’m not happy leaving it on 24/7.

2010 · Dell · Exchange · poweredge · raid · sata · server 2008 R2 · sharepoint

 

I recently purchased a WD 1.5TB hdd for my Desktop. About 2 hours into its use in my PC it burnt out. I sen this back to the nice folks at overclockers.co.uk and 2 weeks later (blame the UK postal strike) it arrived and was promptly replaced. So the new drive arrived and 24 hours later i deem it working OK. However with my current rig i have 1 x 160 GB SATA, and 3 x 1TB SATA. The 3 x 1TB drives are in a RAID 5 configuration. No more data loss for me. Recently my gaming habits have pushed my 160GB drive to capacity. So i figure its time to try Windows 7 Built in Backup and Restore.

Start ->Â backup. Simple eh?

Select the Library and Local Disk, also tick include a system image.

Now to the scary part. Installing the new HDD in the Antec 900 was easy and a prompt reboot and boot to DVD brought up the Recovery disk. This restore process detected my backup and offered to restore it. My fear of losing my raid array made me chose the custom route. However this was not necessary as the drive restore stated that the RAID would be excluded from the backup as it was the location of the backup media. My fears however were  not alleviated as i found in the past with Microsoft that sometimes they mess up the simplest wording of an action.

20 Mins later and the PC had booted into Windows 7. As it uses an image level backup my HDD was showing as 160GB. Thankfully microsoft were smart enough to remove the need for Partition Magic and other partitioning software and i was able to “expand disk” while windows was still running. No reboot needed at this point and no re-activation of windows.

Some benchmark tests will follow once i get my SSD’s up and running.

hdd · overclockers · raid · sata · windows 7