Nick

Hi

SBS 2003 R2 Premium, 10 users, 2x 72gb disks configured as RAID1+0 on HP Proliant ML350 server

I believe that there may be an issue with the HP RAID BIOS which has seetings for a boot disk of either 4gb or 8gb. I'm right now installing my first HP server when I've previously specialised in Fujitsu Siemens & previously used boot drives of about 20gb. Should I therefore set the size of the boot drive to 8gb?

Can I repartition C drive on 2003 DC

Nick (half way though an installation)

Hanley

Why do you need a boot partition of 20GB??

I only ever use 2 x 9GB drives mirrored for my OS partition, never use any bigger. Don't forget that nothing else other than your OS should really go on that partition.

I'm sure Volume Manager will be able to re-size your C drive, do a backup before you start though

Nick

Thanks for your reply

I found out that the HP setting is only for legacy o/s, so panic over - I hope. SBS needs a larger boot drive - 15-20gb is usually good. A 9gb boot will run out of space due to stuff that must go on the c drive. Do you use that size for SBS?

Hanley

Sorry missed the SBS part.

I've never used SBS

Nick

No probs!

Miles

For a non SBS server I'd use 10Gb, for an SBS I'd use 20Gb. Can resize partitions with the Diskpart command which is a part of the Operating System - although Diskpart can't run against an active boot partition. However, using something like Bart's PE gets round all that.

Nick

Thanks for the tips Miles.

I hadn't yet started the partitioning so I didn't need to use any tools.

The HP servers were certainly easier to setup than FSC. I used to have to spend a day hunting for FSC drivers hidden away somewhere on CD #4!

Hanley

What Hp server are you using?

Building ML570's and DL380's is a breeze

Nick

It's an ML350 G5 - just for a 10 user setup. Very nice it is too although it's a hassle with only 1 nic, I found it a lot of trouble to find someone with an NC320T in stock.

Miles

They all are with the Smartstart disks! Only thing with SBS is that you end up shoving in about 5 CDs...

Personally I haven't heard of that RAID limitation either with the onboard or cards. However as a safety check, download the latest Firmware CD from HP and run (tis self booting) it to update all the firmwares on your server.

Nick

Hi Miles

SBS ships with CDs & a DVD... although I found yesterday that the DVD doesn't work with HP Smartstart.

I'll check the firmwares, thanks. Would a firmware upgrade be non-destructive on the RAID controller?

Miles

If's an HP Raid controller, the upgrade will be non-destructive.

Nick

Thanks, yes it's an HP e200i.