Server 2008: How To maintain a software RAID 1?

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

For a small project I'm deploying a Windows Server 2008. The most important
thing for the project are the 2x SATA hard disks operated in software RAID 1
mode (drives are set as dynamic and one drive is set as a mirror for the
other drive). Since I'm doing this for the first time, there are a couple of
questions left which I'm not sure about:

1) How can I verify the health status of the RAID? Do I have to run chkdsk
or something similiar?
2) In another thread [1] there was a hint to query the Event Viewer for
suspicious events - if that's a valid implementation of a notification
system, then there's the question left, which events to look for?
For example I set up a virtual machine to do some test runs, and in the VM I
disconnected a mirror during runtime. As a result there were like 10 error
events in the Event Viewer with alltogether 2 or 3 different event id's (some
errors appeared multiple times). Are those id's on all systems the same? What
happens if one drive get's out of sync?
3) Maybe someone has any other useful/detailed informations on this topic.
Beside the basic setup tutorials for a software raid I had troubles to find
valuable informations about the raid maintenance, and I'd be happy about
anything.


Kind regards, Chris




[1]
http://www.microsoft.com/communitie...00dfe1483cf5&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1

 

Chris,
1) You can use a number of the disk test utilities (e.g. iometer from
iometer.org) that will evaluate both performance and stability of your
storage subsystem. I'd also recommend breaking and reestablishing the mirror
several times to make sure the system behaves as expected
2) In essence, you are looking for errors and warnings - which are clearly
marked with visual clues in both System and Application logs. Windows Server
2008 will typically provide additional information allowing you to track
down the underlying cause.
3) Assuming that you are deploying a production system, I'd suggest using
hardware (rather than software) based RAID...

hth
Marcin

"Christian Schratter" <ChristianSchratter@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
in message news:4AD11EA1-C1E6-41B4-82D1-105D5B1D6F31@microsoft.com...
> Good evening ladies and gentlemen.
>
> For a small project I'm deploying a Windows Server 2008. The most
> important
> thing for the project are the 2x SATA hard disks operated in software RAID
> 1
> mode (drives are set as dynamic and one drive is set as a mirror for the
> other drive). Since I'm doing this for the first time, there are a couple
> of
> questions left which I'm not sure about:
>
> 1) How can I verify the health status of the RAID? Do I have to run chkdsk
> or something similiar?
> 2) In another thread [1] there was a hint to query the Event Viewer for
> suspicious events - if that's a valid implementation of a notification
> system, then there's the question left, which events to look for?
> For example I set up a virtual machine to do some test runs, and in the VM
> I
> disconnected a mirror during runtime. As a result there were like 10 error
> events in the Event Viewer with alltogether 2 or 3 different event id's
> (some
> errors appeared multiple times). Are those id's on all systems the same?
> What
> happens if one drive get's out of sync?
> 3) Maybe someone has any other useful/detailed informations on this topic.
> Beside the basic setup tutorials for a software raid I had troubles to
> find
> valuable informations about the raid maintenance, and I'd be happy about
> anything.
>
>
> Kind regards, Chris
>
>
>
>
> [1]
> http://www.microsoft.com/communitie...00dfe1483cf5&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1

 

Hello Christian,

If you are using dell or hp you can take advantage of the system management
softwares that comes with the hardware to do all these for you..

Isaac

"Christian Schratter" <ChristianSchratter@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
in message news:4AD11EA1-C1E6-41B4-82D1-105D5B1D6F31@microsoft.com...
> Good evening ladies and gentlemen.
>
> For a small project I'm deploying a Windows Server 2008. The most
> important
> thing for the project are the 2x SATA hard disks operated in software RAID
> 1
> mode (drives are set as dynamic and one drive is set as a mirror for the
> other drive). Since I'm doing this for the first time, there are a couple
> of
> questions left which I'm not sure about:
>
> 1) How can I verify the health status of the RAID? Do I have to run chkdsk
> or something similiar?
> 2) In another thread [1] there was a hint to query the Event Viewer for
> suspicious events - if that's a valid implementation of a notification
> system, then there's the question left, which events to look for?
> For example I set up a virtual machine to do some test runs, and in the VM
> I
> disconnected a mirror during runtime. As a result there were like 10 error
> events in the Event Viewer with alltogether 2 or 3 different event id's
> (some
> errors appeared multiple times). Are those id's on all systems the same?
> What
> happens if one drive get's out of sync?
> 3) Maybe someone has any other useful/detailed informations on this topic.
> Beside the basic setup tutorials for a software raid I had troubles to
> find
> valuable informations about the raid maintenance, and I'd be happy about
> anything.
>
>
> Kind regards, Chris
>
>
>
>
> [1]
> http://www.microsoft.com/communitie...00dfe1483cf5&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1

 

Hello,

unfortunately I'm not using neither Dell nor HP hardware (I've got an MSI
board without RAID support), but maybe the software would still work?! Do you
have any names/hints which software you mean in particular?

Chris


"Isaac Oben [MCITP:EA, MCSE]" wrote:

> Hello Christian,
>
> If you are using dell or hp you can take advantage of the system management
> softwares that comes with the hardware to do all these for you..
>
> Isaac

 

Hi

Thank you for your reply.

1) I had a look at the iometer, but actually it looked "a little bit" too
much. In the end everything I'd really need in addition to a scheduled
defragmentation would be something to verify that the RAID/the mirror is
still working as intended and send me a mail notification if there are any
troubles.

2) As mentioned I'm more or less aware of some error messages in the Event
Viewer. What I do not know and what I could not find out is, which events in
detail someone should look for or which can be expected? Would you have any
hints about this issue, or know where I could find additional informations?

3) Hardware RAID would be indeed the way to go for any production system -
since this is to most extend an educational project though I can't really
afford any further investments.

Chris


"Marcin" wrote:

> Chris,
> 1) You can use a number of the disk test utilities (e.g. iometer from
> iometer.org) that will evaluate both performance and stability of your
> storage subsystem. I'd also recommend breaking and reestablishing the mirror
> several times to make sure the system behaves as expected
>
> 2) In essence, you are looking for errors and warnings - which are clearly
> marked with visual clues in both System and Application logs. Windows Server
> 2008 will typically provide additional information allowing you to track
> down the underlying cause.
>
> 3) Assuming that you are deploying a production system, I'd suggest using
> hardware (rather than software) based RAID...
>

 

This are specific management software that cames with either Dell or HP
hardwares,

Isaac

"Christian Schratter" <ChristianSchratter@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
in message news:93D7D953-695B-4B45-9928-E6BD1410469D@microsoft.com...
> Hello,
>
> unfortunately I'm not using neither Dell nor HP hardware (I've got an MSI
> board without RAID support), but maybe the software would still work?! Do
> you
> have any names/hints which software you mean in particular?
>
> Chris
>
>
> "Isaac Oben [MCITP:EA, MCSE]" wrote:
>
>> Hello Christian,
>>
>> If you are using dell or hp you can take advantage of the system
>> management
>> softwares that comes with the hardware to do all these for you..
>>
>> Isaac