Adaptec Windows Raid Management Tools

My brother recently lost a hard drive on his raid array, so we put in the backup drive thinking all was good. Unfortuneately, we had to reboot the server and go into the BIOS based Adaptec tools to low level format the new hard drive and rebuild the raid array. This took a bunch of time while the server was effectively down.

The server is a SuperMicro with an integrated Adaptec 2000S SCSI controller. It uses a 4 drive SCSI RAID-5 array (3 data + 1 Parity).

Are there Windows Server 2003 based tools that will allow us to low level format new hard drives and rebuild the raid array while the server is running?

Any help would be appreciated.

- Mike

All of the major (enterprise) RAID manufacturers -- including Adaptec -- have software utilities that will allow you to reconfigure & rebuild arrays on the fly while the computer is live. The software should've come with the motherboard or system, or should be available from Supermicro. (I would've looked it up on Supermicro's site, but you didn't mention the model of your mobo or server.)

The hardware default on most controllers will assume a rebuild if you remove a failed drive and replace it on the same ID (or hot-swap slot).

And to nit-pick just a little bit... You don't have "3 data + 1 parity" in your 4-drive RAID 5 array. In RAID 5, data and parity information is distributed evenly across all the drives in the array. All four of your drives contain both data and parity info.

Thanks for the reply.

The supermicro site only has drivers. It doesn't have any utilities. The adaptec site demands some type of serial number to register to download anything. To get the serial number I have to go reboot the server and hit Ctrl-A, etc. I'm doing everthing remote from home, so this isn't happening.

Damn they make this hard.

It's a 7043 with an integreted 2000S adaptec controller. It's Ultra160.

I'll get the serial number tomorrow. :)

Merry Christmas everyone!