Virtual disks in RAID 10 array

Before you ask, I've posted this on experts exchange as well, but I need to know the answer ASAP as I need to ship this server out by tomorrow.

I'm creating a RAID array on a Dell Poweredge 2950 with 4 300GB SAS drives. Is it possible to configure the array for RAID 10, and have each partition appear as a separate disk in Disk Manager? I'd like my boot partition to appear as Disk 0, then each additional partition to appear as Disk1 and Disk2.

Does this defy the nature of RAID 10?

If anyone with experience building servers can help me out that's be swell

No that does not defy the nature of RAID10. It personafies it. I think your shy a drive for that though. Your mirror will need to be the size of your stripe. If you are striping 2x300gigs you will need a 600gig to mirror to if im not mistaken. I could be wrong though.

By striping multiple mirror sets, RAID 10 can create larger virtual drives. The host computer will see what it believes to be a single physical disk of a specific size.

One of the downfalls of r10 is it requires an additional disk to make up each mirror set.

Hope i helped and didnt hinder, lol.

hmm..

Hardware raid 1+0
Mirror, then stripe.
Mirroring loses 600GB
Striping loses no space.
But how are those presented to Windows...?

A regular hardware raid 1 only, shows up as a single disk, in Disk manager.

When mirrored in Windows ( I don't recommend) you see 2 disks with the same drive letter.

If you do a Raid 1+0 through hardware, I believe the results will appear the same, a single disk presented to windows, you'll just have faster disks.



I think a lot of it will be determined by the SAS controller.










[edit on 24-5-2007 by spacedoubt]