How to create an affordable RAID server using Windows XP

Just a week before holidays, my Windows 2000 fileserver with 300 GB internal HD crashed. I had my Music, Photos, Videos and Movies on this server. I was kicking myself for not taking a backup. But as we all know scheduling a regular backup is a big pain unless you have big money to throw on tape backups. So I decided to build a simple fileserver with RAID this time.

First I need to do is recover data from crashed HD. I booted using Knoppix and luckily it recognized the crashed HD. I started SSH server in Knoppix and using SCP I remotely copied all data onto an external HD. Then I tried to recover this crashed HD by reformatting but no luck.

Now to create a simple RAID server

1. I bought two 500 GB internal SATA drives from Newegg for $150 each.
2. Then I bought a SIIG SATA – PCI 4 channel RAID controller from local FRYs for $70. I couldn’t find 2 channel RAID controller. I think it costs around $40. Make sure the controller card supports 500 GB disks. BTW this controller card comes with the 4 SATA cables and 2 Y power cables.
3. Dusted off an old Pentium II machine from my garage. This particular SIIG card works only with Pentium chips not with Celeron.

Steps to create the RAID server

1. Install the SIIG RAID controller in the free PCI slot.
2. Connect the Y power cables to the SATA drive
3. Connect the SATA data cables to the controller and the SATA HD.
4. Power up the computer.
5. While in boot screen press ctrl S or F4 to get into RAID setup options.
6. Select the type of RAID you want to setup. I want to setup RAID 1. So I selected RAID 1. Then follow the instructions.
7. I wanted to start fresh so installed Windows XP on this machine. SIIG controller card only supports Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It doesn’t support Windows 2003 or LinuxL. So I choose Windows XP.
8. I installed Windows XP on the HD that was originally on the machine. (not on SATA disks)
9. After Windows XP installation is complete, install the drivers for the SIIG controller from the SIIG CD. You can use ‘Add new hardware’ wizard if windows do not prompt for the driver automatically.
10. Install SIIG GUI from the CD.
11. Open the Disk Manager (Computer Management – Disk Management). You would notice two disk drives instead of three. One of which would be the original HD with NTFS partition and status as healthy. Other one would be the 500 GB RAID disk unformatted drive.
12. Right click the 500 GB unformatted disk and format it. (You may want to divide this disk into multiple drives as per your need)
13. To make sure everything works fine – reboot the machine. (Optional)

Voila !!, you have got a 500 GB RAID server running on Windows XP.

In future, if one disk crashes, SIIG GUI will let you know. Replace the crashed disk with a new one. During boot process select RAID setup, select rebuild option and it should do the rest. (I haven’t tried this yet).

HTH and have fun,
Balaji NJL