May be for ntdoc, but if others know the answer, please post

I'm installing Windows SBS Server 2003 R2 on a new Dell server - the server has 2 250gb disks in a raid 0 (or 1 - can't remember and not in front of the server right now). When beginning install I was asked if I wanted to create a partition for the OS of 25gb and I said 'yes' since I've read for increased stability it's helpful. Well, the partition was created fine, but now it only shows that I have a C: drive with 25gb and nothing else.

Do I need to format the disk and start over? Or is there a way to get this to drive D: or something...

A disk partition tool like Partition Magic should be able to create a partition in the unpartitioned space for you. I'm sure there are several free ones out there (partition magic itself isn't free)

just go to 'Administrative tools' -- 'Computer management' -- 'Disk management'

you will see all your partitions there as well as unpartitioned space.


you can partition, format, assign drive letters and more

*poof* done

TYVM SD, I thought it may be something simple, it's been a few years (7-8) since I've set up a server.

You know, I've never even really thought to look there lol... Never had the need to adjust partitions on my systems (one large drive, one lotta space!)

Yep SD showed you how already. Sorry was off Teaching an Excel class today so no time to look at the board this morning.

Well with a single built-in controller and only 2 drives it really doesn't matter that much on the partitions.

You could have easily used the whole thing but having a separate drive for SHARES and DATA is a good thing. You can modify the root of the D: volume for more locked down permissions (though 2003 is much better than any previous version for that already)

As for "stability" no not an issue. I have a 600GB RAID0 at home that runs just perfectly.

Now if you have more controllers and more hard drives then YES it could make a big difference how they're setup.

Sound like you've got it going already though so cheers

Thanks,

Setting the partitions took only a few seconds. I added one for installed programs that aren't OS, and the rest for shared user files/storage

I'd like to add a third hard drive for backup storage - recommend an internal or external/usb hard drive? They're pretty cheap nowadays for a few hundred GB.

I can remember being jealous of a co-worker because she got the 'good' computer with the 340mb hard drive and mine was only 180mb and something like 16mb of ram But when I snuck the upgrade Windows For Workgroups 3.11 onto my pc (what's security?) it flew! This server is a dual quad core xeon with 4gb of ram, PERC 5/i controller card and 500gb of HD :thumbsup:

Yeh I often remember upgrading another 1mb ram into my 286... Then when I upgraded to the 386! Then when we got the decommissioned desktop PC's from Nike (486 SX's) then dreaming of a 486 DXII...

fyi, windoze XP has the same dealio. it's really not a 'server' thing per se.. :2c:

Well that's quite a bit of DELL you got there really. Why such paltry drives? What you running or wanting to run/support with this server? For database or other critical applications using RAID1+0 (known as RAID10 to some) would be the fastest but is quite expensive due to needing so many drives. I setup one at work a few months ago and with SAS (Serial Attached SCSI)
SAS
using 15K RPM drives. Did an el cheapo speed test on it today actually and it reads about 155MBS sustained and about 330MBS burst reads (exceeding the SCSI 320 theoretical speeds (real life SCSI 320 does not read that fast)


For a backup drive I'd really recommend an LTO3 tape drive from Dell (since you're buying Dell) you can do them to a hard drive but unlike tapes you start to run out of space on a hard drive for backups even with a TB drive. (I just bought one for home since I lost a 300GB drive and about 20% of it was not backed up)

With tapes you can keep buying more and send them off-site for secure backup and over a certain time period do a rotation back into the current tapes. Just decide how long you may want or need backups. At Disney we had to keep some for ever, once did a restore of an entire 340GB drive from tapes that were about 7 years old. Normal Servers were only stored for 1 year, then the tape was brought back in and reused.

A bit different but semi-related. Here is a nice link on Wikipedia for bandwidth limits
List of device bandwidths

Merci

We really don't do a lot with the server, which is why the previous one lasted ~7-8 years. We're a small operation - maybe 4-5 concurrent users up to 8 at peak times. I'd have continued running SBS 2k but we were beginning to have more and more issues with it, an inspection by a SBS geek confirmed our AD was corrupted and she recommended replacement. So here we are... e should be set for the next 7 years, or until my dad decides to retire/sell, whichever comes first. We are looking forward to a more stable network and faster throughput for our accounting and point of sale systems.

In setting up the server it told me it only supports 2 processors. When I view performance in the Task Manager it has 8 windows for watching processor performance, does that mean it uses all 8, is there a way to verify this?