John W. Colby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Sat May 15 00:21:55 CDT 2004
This brings up another question, do you place both mirror drives on the same IDE cable? If you can choose, is there any advantage to giving each drive it's own IDE cable (simultaneous operations and the like)?. John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of JMoss Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 1:01 AM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: RE: [AccessD] Going to Raid - Win2K John, If the Highpoint is anything like the Promise RAID controller, all that you have to do is load the drivers with the first drive still connected to the original controller, and then reboot. At the reboot, power down the system move the controller cable to the RAID controller and plug the new drive in also. Just make sure you know which connector is which. When the system reboots, the RAID utility runs and allows you to build the mirror. One thing, make sure that the RAID is set for Security rather than Performance because performance doesn't mirror but stripes. See this link for an explanation of RAID 0 striping, and RAID 1 mirroring. You might want to check out some other vendor than Newegg, because they recently starting collecting sales tax, or they did in Tennessee. Sales tax and their shipping rates forced me to switch back to www.tcwo.com who's shipping in a flat $6.95 for up to 150 lbs, plus they don't collect Tennessee tax. Jim -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of John W. Colby Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 11:44 PM To: Tech - Database Advisors Inc.; AccessD Subject: [AccessD] Going to Raid - Win2K Folks, About 6 months ago my less than one year old Maxtor 120g hard drive bit the dust. I replaced it with an old 40g drive I had laying around and a 160g drive. I had intended to just replace it with a 160g but quickly discovered that Win2K doesn't natively support large hard disks until you get SP3 or better installed and manually edit the registry. Thus the old 40g to get Windows up, then the 160g set up. That 40g drive failed this week. In both cases my C: drive (partition) was lost. Backups simply aren't the end all and be all in a case like this because of all the programs and individualized settings for each program - the registry etc. What I have learned from this is that the lost productivity was roughly 2-3 days per incident, waaaay more than the delta cost of Raid 1. I have decided not to go through that again. I am now researching a Raid 1 solution (simple mirror) using a pair of Maxtor 120g drives. This gives me 40g for the system partition (drive c:) and 80g for my dev stuff, web dev etc. My current choice for controller (I do have $ limits to face) is a Highpoint RocketRaid 133. In order to get back up before the weekend I went down to Staples and plunked down the $ for a Maxtor 6y120P0 120g 8mb buffer hard disk. My intention at this point is to order a matching drive and the raid controller from www.Egghead.com and when I get it, set up the mirror. I have a couple of questions though for anyone who may have experience in this. 1) I have already partitioned the new drive and installed Win2K Pro, Office and other programs. Once I get the controller, can I just unplug this disk from my motherboard, plug it in to the raid controller, plug the matching drive in, and tell something to "set up the mirror"? I.e. the new drive gets the exact same partitions (there are three of them) created, files written, and I'm up and running mirrored? 2) If not am I facing a reinstall of everything again? 3) Is there anything I need to know? I just want it to work - I am not a (trained) system admin, I am a developer working in a SOHO. The idea is to get my dev system set up so that all of my installed software and development stuff never again die because a disk dies. I have found and read a bunch of articles on raid in general but can't find any detailed information on the PROCESS of setting the thing up, and specifically with this controller. I assume the documentation with the controller will tell me most of what I need to know, but of course.... what can go wrong will. Any comments or suggestions appreciated. John W. Colby -- _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com