Raid 5

[Honda]

Hi,

I have a little problem trying mount a Raid5 with Starwind, but I dont know if its the initiator or Starwind iscsi.

I have a Hyper V R2 with 2k8 Server Enterprise with Starwind iSCSI, then I make 3 virtual hard disk with basic configuration, allowing multiple conections as cluster.

Then in other Hyper V R2, I conect the 3 virtual hard disk with Microsoft Initiator, and they appear correctly on Disk Manager.

The next step its create Raid5 from that 3 Hard Disk, and them are created correctly till I restart the Hyper V.

When I restart it, on the Disk Manager appear the 3 Hard Disk with errors trying to do the Raid 5, but they arent working.

If I restart the Hyper V without make Raid 5, the 3 Hard Disk after restart, are working fine as simple volumn.

So I would to know if the problem its from Starwind that cant create correct Raid5, or from Microsoft Initiator... I tryed with Starwind Initiator too, but I get the same error...

Well, I hope you can help me.

[Max (staff)]

Hi, you need to find the service which is responsible for building the array and set it to be dependent on Microsoft iSCSI initiator. In order to do this you need to go to Start->Run->Cmd and type sc config RAIDserviceName depend= MSiSCSI
Another way to go is to set the RAID service to a delayed start state. This will make your raid available in 30-40 seconds after OS boot.

[Honda]

Hi, you need to find the service which is responsible for building the array and set it to be dependent on Microsoft iSCSI initiator. In order to do this you need to go to Start->Run->Cmd and type sc config RAIDserviceName depend= MSiSCSI
Another way to go is to set the RAID service to a delayed start state. This will make your raid available in 30-40 seconds after OS boot.

Hi, thanks for you answer,

I am searching the Raid service Name, but I cant find it, could you help me?

[Max (staff)]

What software are you using for the software raid creation?

[Honda]

I create 3 Virtual Disk with Starwind, and with disk manager of w2k8 I make the Raid5

[anton (staff)]

What you're doing is not going to work reliably and makes zero sense. As all the volumes your create and RAID5 later belong to the same physical media on the server side. ZERO redundancy. Just extra XOR traffic and extra CPU cycles. Re-think what you want to achieve as a final goal.

[Honda]

What you're doing is not going to work reliably and makes zero sense. As all the volumes your create and RAID5 later belong to the same physical media on the server side. ZERO redundancy. Just extra XOR traffic and extra CPU cycles. Re-think what you want to achieve as a final goal.

I know, but its just simulation for a university project

[anton (staff)]

It's not StarWind issue. It's the way Windows work. Dynamic disks (and RAID5 volume *IS* dynamic disk) needs so-called "Re-Activation" if they are N/A during system boot time. As network stack starts LATER then storage stack you get access to your RAID5 volume with a delay and Windows marks this RAID5 as "Inactive". Google a bit to find a solution. Or just re-activate the volume "with hands". As it's not production project in any case.

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