Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2008 R2 : Performing postinstallation tasks (part 4) - Configuring disk drives - Creating a mirrored volume

Creating a mirrored volume

Creating a mirrored volume is a fairly easy process. The first step you will need to complete is to add a second physical disk drive to the server. This disk drive will need to be at least of the same size as the first disk in the server. In the following example, we will configure a mirrored disk of the first disk drive which contains our OS installation. To create the mirrored volume, perform the following:

1. Log on to the server and open Server Manager, and then expand Disk Management.

2. Locate the newly inserted disk. The disk will probably appear as disk 1, as the primary disk is already known as disk 0. Right click on the disk drive and select Initialize Disk as seen in Figure 5.

   

   Figure 5 Initialize Disk Drive.

3. The Initialize Disk window will open. Choose either MBR or GPT partition tables, and then click OK. When formatting disk drives, you must select a partition table format. Windows Server 2008 R2 offers the use of either the legacy Master Boot Record (MBR) or the newer GUID Partition Table (GPT) partition table formats. The newer GPT format offers a few advantages, such as providing redundancy in the partition table to help protect the table from corruption as well as the ability to have partitions larger than 2 Terabytes. For volumes or partitions smaller than 2 terabytes, you can use either MBR or GPT, but for larger volumes you must use the GPT format.

4. Next, you will need to convert both disks to dynamic. Right click on the disk drive and choose Convert to Dynamic Disk… as seen in Figure 6. You will need to perform this for both the disk drives to be included in the virrored volume.

   

   Figure 6 Convert Disks to Dynamic.

5. After the disks have been converted to dynamic, you are ready to add the mirror. Right click the original volume on Disk 0 and select Add Mirror (see Figure 7)

   

   Figure 7 Add Disk Mirror.

6. The Add Mirror window will appear. Select the disk drive to be used as the mirrored drive and click on the Add Mirror button.

7. The mirrored volume has now been established. The mirror will appear in a warning state as seen in Figure 8 until the two drives are synchronized. You can see the percentage of completion of the sync process in the disk management console.

   

   Figure 8 Newly Established Mirrored Volume.