Adding RAID controller and disks to Win Server 2003 - Where to sta

Hi community,

The data on the 80GB primary hard disk in my Windows 2003 server has become
far too important to lose. One of the ways I want to protect it is to use
RAID mirroring. So I've bought a 2 port PCI SATA-1 HD controller and a pair
of 250GB SATA-2 drives (we're planning to upgrade the host card a bit later
when the budget allows).

The problem is that I've only ever worked with un-arrayed PATA disks before
now. I'm sure I could work it out by trial and error, but I'm equally sure
that I could mess it up by the same method. So I'm looking for some pointers
to get me started.

Thanks in advance for your enlightenment.
--
take out the trash to email me

If your present 80gig disk is dynamic you won't be able to clone it.

You didn't buy a raid controller which means your only choice is software
mirroring. Not a great choice imo.

You would put in your sata drives, clone the 80gig to the 250gig and expand
to entire disk. Then you would do a repair reinstall of the OS to add the
SATA driver as boot. They you would convert to dynamic via disk management.
Convert the 2nd disk and then software mirror.

"Jools" wrote:
[color=blue]
> Hi community,
>
> The data on the 80GB primary hard disk in my Windows 2003 server has become
> far too important to lose. One of the ways I want to protect it is to use
> RAID mirroring. So I've bought a 2 port PCI SATA-1 HD controller and a pair
> of 250GB SATA-2 drives (we're planning to upgrade the host card a bit later
> when the budget allows).
>
> The problem is that I've only ever worked with un-arrayed PATA disks before
> now. I'm sure I could work it out by trial and error, but I'm equally sure
> that I could mess it up by the same method. So I'm looking for some pointers
> to get me started.
>
> Thanks in advance for your enlightenment.
> --
> take out the trash to email me[/color]