WHS 2011 bare-metal recovery with USB key and SW RAID

[BonzaiDuck]

So . . .

I've got my WHS 2011 set up nicely with StableBit DrivePool. Three workstations have the connection SW installed. I can manage sleep-states and other factors from the WHS Dashboard -- nicely.

Finally purchased some spare "mini-USB-flash" drives -- one for each workstation -- and prepared the USB keys for each respective workstation.

Fine -- and everything worked . . . fine. Only afterwards, did I notice somewhere (maybe it was Terry Walsh's WHS guide via Kindle) that "software RAID is not supported" by the recovery feature which WHS provides.

What does that mean? I can clone a RAID0 disk volume to a single HDD with Acronis. If I replace a bad disk from a software (motherboard-connected?) RAID0, and then re-initialize the array through BIOS, why would not the USB key and WHS recovery feature restore the boot-volume?

 

[Ferzerp]

If you're initializing an array in BIOS, that's not software raid..,

 

[BonzaiDuck]

If you're initializing an array in BIOS, that's not software raid..,

OK. . . . I may have become confused . . . call it "old age" . . . my favorite excuse . . .

I've implemented RAID on the motherboard controller of three or four different chipsets, and I've set it up with a 3Ware 9650-SE 4LP controller as well as a HighPoint 464 RocketRAID. I apparently had come to understand that a controller with its own cache and processor -- as is the case with those latter two -- was a "hardware" controller.

But -- yes -- just about every motherboard controller I midwifed to RAID0 had a function or ctrl-[key] entrance to a controller BIOS.

Cutting to the chase -- does this mean that the RAID0 on the workstation's nVidia nForce controller is "supported" with WHS 2011 recovery? Apparently, I was never entirely clear as to what "software" RAID meant -- to be honest with my given excuse . . .

 

[Ferzerp]

You'll be fine as long as you can get drivers for it. It's cheap hardware raid, but its still hardware raid.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You'll be fine as long as you can get drivers for it. It's cheap hardware raid, but its still hardware raid.

Yes . . . this is the very issue at the core of it . . . The backups made by WHS are supposed to include all the drivers as installed. So for that particular workstation, the backup would include all the nForce drivers available, which is as much to say both the MS/Windows-Update nForce drivers (which worked) and the nVidia drivers I would have installed.

That is, the WHS Dashboard option to create a USB-flash recovery-key would then also include those drivers -- essential to initiate the recovery to a new drive.

It's old LGA-775 hardware 780i chipset with the top-gun Wolfdale.

I appreciate your remarks: I was starting to look around for a way to simply clone the volume to another disk. Even if I wanted to, I can take my time with it if reasonably assured that a restore from the WHS 2011 server has a good chance . . .

 

[Ferzerp]

You shouldn't have issues. Under your backup folders somewhere, there should be a driver directory with all that in in. I can't recall exactly where it stores it.

Just checked for you. They're stored in the backup. Each computer gets a "C:\Drivers for Full System Restore" directory that doesn't really exist on the PC but is in the backup. All your drivers needed are there.