ProLiant G7 N54L RAID 1 Data and Single Disk OS

[NewTech1]

Hoping someone can help me.  

I have Server 2008 R2 installed on a 320 GB drive for my OS.  I want to set up two 2TB drives as a RAID 1 for data storage.

I made sure all patches and updates were done on the OS before I attempted the RAID volume and i had no issues with the OS.

Then I went into the BIOS and set it up as a SATA Raid per this article...

http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=c03004814

I only assigned the logical disk across disk 1 and 2 leaving disk 0 for my OS.  When I reboot the server it tries to launch Windows then before it gets to a login screen it says it failed due to a change in hardware.

I know I could just use Disk Management to create a software RAID 1 within Windows for my Data volume but thought it better if I use the SATA RAID feature.  In fact, I've since set the BIOS back to AHCI and configured the software mirror in Windows.  The server runs off C:\ and my Data volume of 2 TB is there, but again this was done through Disk Management.

So I am wondering if anyone can direct me on this or maybe weigh in on if the software mirror through Windows would be just as good.  I want to use the Data volume for backups and felt RAID 1 would be decent enough for the task.

Thanks in advance.

[Jimmy Vance]

On any of the systems that use chipset RAID, the RAID function is either enabled or disabled, you cannot have RAID on a group of disks and plain SATA on others

[NewTech1]

OK Thanks.  So my two options then are:

Add a second 320 GB disk and RAID 1 the OS volume as well

or  use Disk Management wihtin Windows to create a mirror out of Disk 1 and 2 and leave the OS on the single hdd.

Does that sound correct?

[Jimmy Vance · Accepted solution]

Correct, I don't recall if you can create a 1 disk array like you can with a P series Smart Array controller.

Keep in mind this is chipset or software RAID. the RAID is controlled by a driver and not hardware.  With this server, I would use the RAID function withing the OS itself.

The Gen8 and later systems with chipset RAID actually use the Smart Array RAID stack in the driver. It is still software RAID, but you have the option of moving the drives to a 'P' series hardware RAID controller without data loss

[NewTech1]

Thanks, I really appreciate your input on this!