sata raid 5?

[virtualgeorg]

I just built a server for the first time with 4 - 80 gig sata drives on a hot swap backplane and an adaptec raid card. I never used any of this stuff so I was hoping for a few tips?

I set it up Raid 5 and used all available space and came up with 238 gigs of available space when I set up server 2003. So one of the drives is used for back up and you have space available equal to 3 of the 4 drives right? I see in the docs that maybe I should assign a failover drive but didn't say what that meant, do I need to do that?

When I set this up should I assign all 4 drives to the array then create a partition for the os?

And when I want to erase everything and start all over again, could I use a boot disk and format the drive or fdisk to delete the partition and then format the partition when setting up the os again? I think I saw in the array config utility that you access on startup that you could format the drives there also? Does it matter how you do it? Guess I will just go try and see.

Sorry for all the questions and maybe some would could suggest a good tut site for raid?

One last thing, I have supermicro sc733t case and there is a 9 pin connector for sata drive activity. I have asus nrl-ls533 board and adaptec sata raid controller. Would the drive led cable connect to the MB, raid card, or somewhere else?

Thanks,

[Midknyte]

So one of the drives is used for back up and you have space available equal to 3 of the 4 drives right? I see in the docs that maybe I should assign a failover drive but didn't say what that meant, do I need to do that?

RAID5 uses the equivalent of 1 drive's space for parity information. no one drive has all the parity; it is spread among the 4 drives.

If you want to use all the drives in RAID5, then you have to add them all to the array. You need a minimum of 3 drives for RAID5.

You can always try boot floppies, but most OSes load from the CD nowadays. Win2k and 2k3 allow you to partition and format during the setup. Just use what is easiest for you.

Dunno about that light ****.

http://www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html

http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/product/markeditorial.html?sess=no&prodkey=quick_explanation_of_raid

[virtualgeorg]

So if a drive fails, how are you notified and what do you have to do to replace it if you have hot swap drives?

Thanks,

[Midknyte]

you need to check the manufacturer's specs on how it reports and how to do the hot swap. different controllers have different procedures. Usually there would be some kind of alert message stating that one of the drives has failed. you will definitely notice a slow down in performance.