hai i am using compaq proliant servers mL 370 i want to know how to configure hardware raid. please tell me the steps and difference between hardware raid and software raid

HI Has the server already got a O/S on it??? Does this need to be kept??? Do you have a RAID Card in the server??? Basically the difference between Hardware Raid and Software Raid is H/W Raid - The H/W components control the raid, so you get a much better read and write speed and also more fault tolerate. S/W Raid - The O/S controls the raid, so if your O/S gets corrupt, your Raid goes with it. NOT RECOMMENDED. If your server is already built, you will not be able to set up a Hardware Raid without deleting the data. How many HDD do you have?? You will need 3 HDD at least to configure Raid 5 2 HDD at least to configure Raid 1 To set this up, start your server with HP Smart Start (as it's now called) and follow the instructions, this will walk you through setting up RAID. Hope this helps.. Phyto

hai i am having 5 scsi hard disks with 9.2 gb each one i should have to install winnt on it. please tell me the what are all the basic steps that should be followed in hardware raid can it possibel to make all five harddisks in to one in hardware raid

Hi, You can setup all 5 disks in 1 Array. You can thensetup different drive letters as normal. This way you will only lose 9.2GB of space but your system will be redundant. Basically, if 1 disk fails, your server will stay live and all you have to do is swap the disk. To set this up, use HP Smart Start and it will tell you how to set up RAID. If you need anymore help. let me know. Phyto

hai i have 3 doubts on hardware raid first is i have 5 scsi hard disk. disk 0 which i installed windows nt which is not set to raid. disk1,2,3,4 has been set to raid 5. there i installed my applications such as ms proxy,exchange,msoffice in these disks.suppose my nt crashes in disk o i reinstall my winnt in disk 0 can i abel to use my applications on other disk disk1,2,3,4 or i should have to reinstall my applications. 2) my second doubt is i should have to add another scsi disk can it possibel if it possibel how can i do it 3) my third doubt is i am using compaq proliant 370 server. i want to boot my server through bootabel cd but i cannot see any options entering in to bios can u tell me the place where i can enter in to my bios. press del to enter in to bios option is not found there i will only see press f10 enter in to ur system partiation utilities please help me

You have excellent concerns. Proper raid configuation would be to mirror disks 0 and 1. Raid 5 the remaining 3 disks. But this should have been done before any app or OS was installed. If you hardware raid now you will lose all data/configuration and will start from scratch. But I would do it so I would know my system has disk fault tolerance. You should be able to back everything up, reconfigure, reinstall the OS and backup software [can't do this with just ntbackup] and then restore all of your apps/data.