You can use the Diskraid command on Windows Server 2008 to configure hardware RAID subsystems that use a VDS hardware provider. VDS hardware providers are supplied by the manufacturers of hardware RAID devices and are not included in Windows Server 2008. At least one registered VDS hardware provider must be installed on your server before you can run Diskraid on the server. Using Diskraid, you can manage hardware RAID configurations of levels 0 (striping), 1 (mirroring), and 5 (striping with parity). Diskraid can also be used to manage both Fibre Channel and iSCSI hardware RAID systems. The examples here show how Diskraid can be used to manage a Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) storage system that uses Fibre Channel.
To launch Diskraid, type diskraid at the command prompt. Then type list provider to display the available VDS hardware providers on your server:
DISKRAID> list provider
Prov ### Name Version Type
——– ——————————————— ———- —–
Prov 0 HP EVA VDS Hardware Provider 4.02.03.2 FC
After you use select prov to select an available provider, you can use list subsystem to list the subsystems managed by the provider:
DISKRAID> list subsystem
Subsys ### Name Status Health
———- —————————— ———- ———-
Subsys 0 HP EVA-MDEVA3000 (HSV100) Online Healthy
From this command output, the storage system is online and ready to use, and the type of Fibre Channel controller being used is HSV100.
Now after you use select subsys to select an available subsystem, you can use list controller to list the controllers for the subsystem:
DISKRAID> list controller
Ctlr ### Name Status Health Ports LUNs
——– ——————– ———- ———— —– —-
Ctlr 0 \Hardware\Rack 1\Con Online Healthy 2 2
Ctlr 1 \Hardware\Rack 1\Con Online Healthy 2 2
You can then select a controller and list its details to see its associated LUNs. Then you can select a LUN and manage it by adding or removing plexes. You ca also create new LUNs or delete exiting LUNs, take a LUN offline or bring it online, perform maintenance actions, and perform other tasks using Diskraid. For more information, type diskraid /? at the command prompt.
For more information on managing the File and Print Services roles on Server Core, see my book Windows Server 2008 Server Core Administrator's Pocket Consultant from Microsoft Press.
