How to Create Mirrored Volume | Disk Duplexing Definition

Mirrored Volume & Disk Duplexing Definition

Understanding Mirrored Volumes

Mirrored volume needs two identical disks even these don’t have same amount of space but it is advised that the model of disks is same from the same vendor. Mirrored volume offer fault tolerance. It creates a copy of entire information, which is written to the volume, with one copy on each physical disk. So when one disk is fails, other one will take its place. But, when this happens, fault tolerance no longer exists. We have to break the mirror then we can create a new mirrored volume with other disk to restore fault tolerance. It is not expandable and this volume provides 50 percent disk utilization. This volume gives negative impact on performance due to overhead of writing on dual disks at a time.

Disk Duplexing is another form of fault tolerant in mirroring. Disk duplexing is the same like mirroring; except every disk in mirror is linked to a different disk controller. This gets rid of the disk controller as a single point of breakdown. Duplexed disks come into view to the Operating System the same as mirrored; if we have duplexed disks, they will be publicized as mirrored in the Disk Management Console.

Mirrored Volume

Conditions Those Must be Met In Order To Start Mirroring

1. When SCSI disk is in mirror on different controllers, then translation must be enabled or disabled on the both controllers. No one can enable even as the other is disable.
2. When SCSI disks are on the same controller and there are extra disks on controller, the controller’s BIOS has to support the ability to choose which disk to boot from.
3. When using IDE disks, we make sure that the residual disk after a breakdown has its jumpers set to the “master” position.

When We Have To Use Mirrored Volume?

Mirrored Volume

We can use mirrored volume in the given conditions:

• If we want to make available fault tolerance.
• If the easy way desired for roll back failed Operating System upgrades, but we have to break the mirror for upgrades.
• When we have just two disks but we want fault tolerance.
• When we want the system up after any kind of data breakdown.

Create Mirrored Volume Windows Server 2003

Step 1: Right-click the simple volume that we want to mirror and select Add Mirror from the menu.

Creating a Mirrored Volume

Step 2: On the next we have to select location to hold a mirror of selected drive. And select the disk on which we want to create the copy of mirror.

Selecting a Location for the Mirror

Step 3: Click the Add Mirror and the created mirror will appear.

Synchronizing a Mirrored Volume

When mirror is created, the Disk Management console will show the same drive letter of the both volumes that make up in the mirror.

Video for Creating Mirrored Volume in Windows Server 2003

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Download Here >>> How To Install Mirrored Volume in Windows Server 2003

Posted by Fahad Bin Ali KhilGi - You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can also leave a response or trackback to this entry. - Thank You - | - ALLAH HAFIZ