ATA RAID issues with SI card and ASUS board

[kam2000]

I set about to do a RAID 1 on my Windows 2000 Professional (not server) computer and came across some documentation that said Mirroring could only be done on Win2K Server.
I've set up the computer, installed the RAID card and drivers. Both drives are plugged into the RAID card and I'm booting from the SCSI device, per instructions. I've made the drives dynamic, too.
On bootup, Win2K "sees" two hard drives: the C: drive and E: which it calls "DSK1_VOL1" or something similar.
I went into the RAID set up and selected RAID 1 (mirroring) and entered the two drive numbers ( 0 and 2) and said "yes" to the question "do you want to copy from the source drive to the destination drive?" I said "yes" to "Do you want offline copy" and also "yes" to "Auto Rebuild Enabled?" I even said yes to "Are you sure?"
I hit enter and it began copying. After about two hours, it says it is 5% done.
The drives are two 160gb Maxtor Ultra ATA/133. The mb is an ASUS A7V8X-X with a 2.6 ghz AMD processor. The controller card is a Silicon Image Ultra-133 Medley ATA Raid Controller OS Driver. I'm running Windows 2K SP3, and the OS can see the entire drive.
Should the copying be taking this long? At this rate, it will be going for days?
Am I wasting my time if mirroring is only possible with W2K server? What would happen if I aborted the procedure with a CTRL-ALT-DEL?

[Georules]

I don't know if pro can do mirroring or not... what is this "documentation" you speak of?

if you aborted the procedure, I would imagine you would be fine, the drive with your stuff on it should just be being read from, and then you would just format the drive that you were mirroring onto.

I imagine this process will work though. The win2k raid is a software approach, which might only be able to be done on server (I don't know), but it seems you are using a hardware raid controller, which win2k should allow to work. what is this "RAID setup" you are using?

[kam2000]

Geo,

Thanks for your reply.

The documentation is just the Windows Help Files, which I often find aren't very helpful. Iin this case, they were probably accurate, just not precisely what I was looking for.

Yes, the RAID is a hardware one, so I think I'm okay. I have two 160-gb HDDs plugged directly into it. Each has the jumpers set for Master.

I described the RAID controller card in the previous post, I think. If you need more details, perhaps I can answer them.

It's probably taking a long time because those are two big-ass HDDs I've got in there.

If I can supply any more info, let me know and I'll try. I kind of leaped into this project before I knew what I was doing and I've been hard-pressed to find much useful info. I already hosed the OS once but the second install always goes much faster.

I'm hoping to finish this before my week's vacation is up.

[kam2000]

Geo,

Forgot to reply to your question on what the "RAID setup" was.

When I boot up, I am offered the option to press F3 and enter the RAID setup utility. There I can choose which kind of RAID (0 or 1 and so on) and from there I respond to a series of prompts. I recorded those prompts and answers in my original post.

Again, if I can answer any more questions in the pursuit of getting more answers, ask away.

[AOWC_Waldo]

To answer your question "should it take this long"

Yes it will take a very long time. Raid one is almost as bad as raid 5. even of your source drive is empty (except an OS of course) you have to understand the calculations your 2 hard drives have to do to set up a raid. one suggestion, RAID's do not like to use different type drives. Make sure you are using identical hard drives. The biggest question is why do you need a raid 1. Is it backup you need or performance? Wand performance go with raid 0

Hope that helps!
Cheers!
Brian

[kam2000]

Brian,

Thank you for your response. I am using RAID 1 for backup/reliability. I finally backed out this morning when it was up to 54% and it hosed the drive. However, in the meantime, I had been advised not to make the disks dynamic and a couple of other things, so starting over wasn't the end of the world.

I also went back and did the RAID as a fresh install, so I didn't have to go through the copy.

But I am now seeing the second drive in "My Computer". It looks identical to the first, with the same folders (what few you get from a fresh OS install.) Should it be visible? I was under the impression that it would not be.

[AOWC_Waldo]

It really depends ... I remember back in the NT4 days that you could see the information on both drives. One other bit of advice what ever type of hard drives you have for the computer, I would keep a spare identical dive there so if anything goes wrong you do not have to spend time buying a replacement.

But in short, seeing the info on both drives is not a problem.

Cheers!
Brian

[kam2000]

Brian,

The extra drive has "disappeared" from "My computer" and does not show up in Disk Management. However, the RAID setup says I have a RAID set and the RAID software log says "Set 0 started a bebuild for Secondary Master device on adapter 0"

Do I have RAID?

Thanks again.

[PorkchopExpress]

Windows 2000 came out with some pretty cool software options in LDM (logical disk manager).

With pro, you could stripe and span.

With server, you add RAID-5 and Mirroring.

Keep in mind that this is SOFTWARE. The OS controls these volumes.

This way you can add RAID-5 and RAID-1 (mirroring) protection to a cheaper server that has a lot of harddrives.

They are in no way as efficient or perform as well as hardware raid (which is what you are running), but it is cheaper (on a large server scale).

To the OS, a hardware RAID is just another drive. If one of your drives were to fail, the OS wouldn't even notice it. Your Bios would start beeping though, and would scream at you during post.

ANY OS can run a Hardware mirror as long as the manufacture provides the RAID controller's driver.

"Syncing" the drives can take a LONG time. So don't worry. I've worked on Ultra320 devices that could take half a day depending on the size of the drives and how many.

Your RAID setup is working great.

[AOWC_Waldo]

From the info I have I agree ... your RAID is working properly. If you want to test it ... toss in a new drive in the stead of the 2nd hard drive and see if the raid rebuilds.
Cheers!
Brian