J
Jeff
....just ordered parts to build a new server today. Setting up raid will be a
bit new for me. I ran into one snag.
I had intended to purchase an Adaptec RAID controller model 4805SAS PCI
Express to run a Raid 10 with 4 15K Seagage SAS drives for the OS. Everyone
is out of the adaptec controllers. As near as I can tell, they switched
something on this controller to make it more compatible with something
(perhaps Vista?) and won't be shipping new ones until the end of the month
(I'm not positive about this, but I think that this is the reason that
everyone is out of them). The main board, a Tyan h2000m S3992 for an Opteron
2218, will not natively handle the SAS drives, but does have on-board raid
for Sata. If I am right and adaptec was updating something on the card, I
wouldn't want to search too hard to find one of the old ones somewhere, but
would want to wait for the newer version. I was thinking about the
possibility of installing W2003 R2 on a single Sata drive to get things
running and tested and then clone the entire thing over to the Raid set-up
after the Adaptec controller becomes available. I do know, however, that
cloning an OS from IDE to SCSI used to be problematic a few years ago when I
attempted this. I don't know if the same is true in moving an OS from Sata
to SAS. There used to be something from Microsoft called driveprep that
would help with such a transfer, but when I used this years ago, it still
wouldn't work and I ended up reinstalling everything anyway. I'm not
dead-set on Adaptec, but I understand that this controller has a good
reputation and is PCI express, so it should run well into the future even if
something running on a slower bus would do. If there is something
equivalent, I might consider that alternative. So, any comments/suggestions?
More specifically, does anyone know if it is possible to clone W2003 running
on a Sata drive over to a SAS Raid 10 on the same machine (other than the
drives)?
Jeff
bit new for me. I ran into one snag.
I had intended to purchase an Adaptec RAID controller model 4805SAS PCI
Express to run a Raid 10 with 4 15K Seagage SAS drives for the OS. Everyone
is out of the adaptec controllers. As near as I can tell, they switched
something on this controller to make it more compatible with something
(perhaps Vista?) and won't be shipping new ones until the end of the month
(I'm not positive about this, but I think that this is the reason that
everyone is out of them). The main board, a Tyan h2000m S3992 for an Opteron
2218, will not natively handle the SAS drives, but does have on-board raid
for Sata. If I am right and adaptec was updating something on the card, I
wouldn't want to search too hard to find one of the old ones somewhere, but
would want to wait for the newer version. I was thinking about the
possibility of installing W2003 R2 on a single Sata drive to get things
running and tested and then clone the entire thing over to the Raid set-up
after the Adaptec controller becomes available. I do know, however, that
cloning an OS from IDE to SCSI used to be problematic a few years ago when I
attempted this. I don't know if the same is true in moving an OS from Sata
to SAS. There used to be something from Microsoft called driveprep that
would help with such a transfer, but when I used this years ago, it still
wouldn't work and I ended up reinstalling everything anyway. I'm not
dead-set on Adaptec, but I understand that this controller has a good
reputation and is PCI express, so it should run well into the future even if
something running on a slower bus would do. If there is something
equivalent, I might consider that alternative. So, any comments/suggestions?
More specifically, does anyone know if it is possible to clone W2003 running
on a Sata drive over to a SAS Raid 10 on the same machine (other than the
drives)?
Jeff