How to have 3 operating systems on a mirror RAID 1

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How do one proceed if I want to have 3 Operating Systems: Windows 7, Ubuntu, Debian plus a swap partion, all in all 4 partitions?

Lets say I have 2 disks, each 640 GB and make room -> 300 GB for Windows 7 -> 160 GB Ubuntu, -> 160 GB Debian and the rest for swap -> 20 GB.

Where do I make these partitions, do I first make one big raid array 1 in BIOS and then partition when Windows 7 is installed or do I already in BIOS make these 4 partitions?

Chris_45

Posted 2010-06-10T14:55:30.273

Reputation: 1 397

Answers

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You can't make partitions from the BIOS. What you will have to do is boot into your RAID controller's BIOS and create and initialize the RAID 1. Then partition is however you want during the OS install process.

Just make sure that your RAID controller is compatible will each of the OSes that you plan on installing and you'll be fine.

MDMarra

Posted 2010-06-10T14:55:30.273

Reputation: 19 580

1If it's a cheap onboard controller, it'll be software RAID, which often doesn't play nicely across different operating systems. A good hardware controller (Adaptec) will present a single disk to any operating system, so you'd then just triple boot as you normally would. – Dentrasi – 2010-06-10T16:25:01.320

Ok what about the Intel ICH10R SATA Controller on the GigaByte board GA-X58A-UD7, is that a true hardware RAID controller? http://www.gigabyte.eu/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ClassValue=Motherboard&ProductID=3251&ProductName=GA-X58A-UD7

– Chris_45 – 2010-06-11T11:03:40.637

@Chris_45 - No. It's a safe bet that almost all RAID controllers built in to a desktop motherboard are similar in this instance. – MDMarra – 2010-06-11T11:45:08.510

Ok but are there several levels of software raid, because if one convert disks to dynamic disks inside the Windows OS, one can make raid and so on, but what are the differences between these two software raids. And BTW: true hardware raid never demands drivers for the os right? – Chris_45 – 2010-06-11T12:03:08.857

@Chris_45 - Both was SW RAID in the sense that there is not a dedicated controller with RAM and a CPU that exist solely for the RAID parity calculations. Also, these integrated solutions usually do not support hot-swap which is another major component, in case a drive fails. You will only find what is considered to be real hardware RAID if it is a separate expansion card and has a dedicated CPU and RAM and usually battery on it. – MDMarra – 2010-06-11T12:58:32.913

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Like @dentrasi stated in the comments, you'll need a hardware RAID and once you have that, the guest OSes won't care about the configuration!

user33788

Posted 2010-06-10T14:55:30.273

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Asked: 2010-06-10T14:55:30.273

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Active: 2011-02-09T03:59:55.597