Question : Problem: Initializing Raid 1 arrays - windows / PERC controller - Are they the same?

Hi all,

I forgot this morning that I had to initialize (sorry for the use of the American spelling, I know it should be spelt "Initialise"!!!) a new Raid 1 array I had set up.

I've configured Array A1 (slots 2 and 3 of channel 1) in the 4e/Di PERC controller on my PowerEdge 2800 server but I thought I background initialization worked even when exiting out of the Configuration Utility and booting into windows, especially as they're not the system drive.
But it seems not.

So I right clicked My Computer -> Manage and clicked on the disk management section of the tree. When I did this the disk initialize and convert wizard appeared.

The New Disk appears as a new line in the disk management utility but it says "Not Initialized" by it. So I cannot format it as a new partition to be used unless it's initialized.


Now, my question to you is:

Is there a difference in using the PERC Configuration Utility to run the disk initialization to initializing it via the windows Disk Management Utility? Does it matter? Will it be software controlled raid 1 array if it is initialized via windows even though it's been configured by PERC?


I hope the above makes sense and I thank you for your answer in advance.

Answer : Problem: Initializing Raid 1 arrays - windows / PERC controller - Are they the same?

there are two different "initializes". The array one and the windows disk manager one.

The PERC one basically creates the array. The windows disk management one write a signature to the disk that uniquely identifies it to the OS. So in short, don't panic, it's perfectly normal. Just initialise it in windows, it's prectically instant.