How to make RAID-1 on Windows Server

por | 28 febrero, 2022
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This guide will help you with configuring software RAID-1 on Windows Server 2019

Step 1: Open menu start and type diskmgmt. It will open the Disk Management window.

Step 2: Preparing GPT Partition Table for mirror on Disk 2

Please run command prompt with administrator privileges and type diskpart and press enter: 

DISKPART>List disk

As you can see, there are two local disks available in the system:

  • Disk 0 – GPT disk with current Windows Installation
  • Disk 1 – unallocated disk

Please clean the second disk and convert it into GPT:

DISKPART>Select disk 1
DISKPART>clean
DISKPART>Convert GPT
DISKPART>List part

Make sure, there’s no partition on disk 2 like reserved partitions. If you found one, please delete it: 

DISKPART>Sel part 1
DISKPART>Delete partition override

Display the list of partitions on first disk (disk 0). Now you need to create the same partitions on your second drive:

DISKPART>Select disk 0
DISKPART>List part

There are 4 partitions:

  • Recovery – 450MB, a recovery partition with WinRE
  • System – 99MB, an EFI partition (more about the partition structure on GPT disks)
  • Reserved – 16MB, an MSR partition
  • Primary – 49GB, a main partition with Windows image

Create the same partitions structure on second disk:

DISKPART>Select disk 1
DISKPART>Create partition primary size=450
DISKPART>format quick fs=ntfs label=»WinRE»
DISKPART>set id=»de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac»
DISKPART>create partition efi size=99
DISKPART>create partition msr size=16
DISKPART>list part

Convert Disks to Dynamic and Create a Mirrored Disk

Now you need to convert both disks to dynamic:

DISKPART>Select disk 0
DISKPART>Convert dynamic
DISKPART>Select disk 1
DISKPART>Con dyn

Create a mirror for a system drive (drive letter C:). Select a partition on Disk 0 and create a mirror for it on Disk 1:

DISKPART>Select volume c
DISKPART>Add disk=1

You should see note:
DiskPart succeeded in adding a mirror to the volume
Open Disk Management and make sure the drive C: synchronization has been started (Resynching). Now you need to wait some times for full synchronization.

During booting your Windows, you will see two options:

  • Windows Server 2019
  • Windows Server 2019 – secondary plex

It’s normal. You don’t need to select it by hand. Just wait 30s and OS will boot automatically.