I currently have a Dell PowerEdge 1600 SC server (2 x 2.4 GHz Xeon, 4 GB DDR, 2 x 73 GB mirrored Seagate 10k Ultra-320 SCSI drives) that I would like to add 2 more hard drives to. The new drives are exactly the same as the old ones, and I am hoping to set up the exact same configuration (have the new drives mirrored the same way as the old ones) to add a net 73 GB of storage.

The SCSI controller that I am using is an LSI Logic LSI21320-R. It has two channels (one of which is being used for the old drives), and supposedly possesses integrated data mirroring.

By the way, the drives and card are 68-pin.

To be honest, I have no idea how the first two drives were set up. It would seem that Dell OpenManage Array Manager was used to configure a RAID 1 setup for the two old drives (they appear as 1 virtual/2 physical drives in the Array Manager)...? Or does the card automatically configure a RAID 1 setup through its hardware? Is mirroring possible without RAID 1?

Anyway, I am just a bit confused as to what to do. The server is currently running an entire business, so it is critical that no mistakes are made - I need to get this right the first time.

Any input or advice is much appreciated.

Thanks!

Mirroring and RAID 1 are used here interchangeably. To set up mirrored drives, what you are doing is setting up a RAID 1.

You should be able to install the SCSI drives in accordance with the Dell PowerEdge 1600SC Service Manual, and then configure the RAID card in accordance with the Dell PERC 4/SC, 4/DC, 4e/DC User's Manual.

Note: I am not positive that your RAID controller is a PERC 4/DC. This is my best guesstimate based on the LSI card model you gave, but you will need to check your configuration to be sure.

You can configure the two drives into a RAID 1 configuration using either the Dell OpenManage Array Manager, or you can use the BIOS configuration utility. Both will do the same thing -- create 1 virtual drive out of the 2 physical drives.

Once the single virtual drive is created, you'll then create and format a partition on it using the Windows Server 2003 Disk Management tool (assuming you're running Windows Server).