Starting Raid 1 after install on single drive

[pollardhimself]

Just got a old dell server off ebay for cheap for my isas server. And it came with one ultra320 18gb hd I thought I had some but turns out there only ultra160's. Can I go ahead and install windows server on the one drive an add the second later and start raid 1? if so how?

 

[Paperdoc]

You need the complete manual on the RAID1 system you plan to use. Is it built into the mobo's chipset and BIOS? Or, are you using an add-on PCI card to be the RAID controller for hard drives?

On current RAID systems built into mobo chipsets and BIOS's it is common that a RAID1 system can be created by simply adding a second HDD unit that matches the first, and then having the RAID management system copy all the data over to create the mirrored HDD, then alter a few key data items on each disk so that the pair become a fully functioning RAID1 array. In fact, this process is the basis for the method used to repair a RAID1 array with one faulty HDD that has to be replaced. But you really should read the manual for YOUR RAID system to verify exactly how this can work for your system.

 

[pollardhimself]

its on a dell server power edge 1750

 

[Paperdoc]

Seaching for manuals on the dell site for this model, with a focus on storage systems, got me to this page:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/Storlink/

As you can see, PowerEdge servers can be done with several types of storage systems, so look closely at what you have and see if the info you need can be obtained from that site.

 

[mfenn]

For hardware RAID, it depends on the controller, as has been mentioned above.

For Windows software RAID, you can convert the "basic disk" that you have now to a "dynamic disk" and then add a mirror without losing data (you can even do this all online if you want).