Basic Raid Controller to Replace Intel RST on Server OS's

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Kardonxt

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Hi guys! I'm looking for a recommendation for reasonably priced hardware RAID controllers to replace Intel RST on Server 2019 and 2022. It looks like the new RST software is app store based and won't install on a server OS.

I know software RAID isn't ideal, but it has worked well for our smaller SMB customers for decades. Does anyone have recommendations for an easy to manage RAID controller for basic RAID 1 and RAID 5 operations? Something between your garbage Startech and an expensive LSI would be ideal, I'm hoping to avoid used enterprise hardware.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. We will probably just use disk management mirroring and storage pools for now, but that's always worked a bit clunky for me.
 
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Head over to serversupply.com and look up some preowned raid controllers. Their prices are good.
 
Just curious, what isn't working with the Intel controller exactly?

The Intel raid, once configured, shouldn't actually depend on anything that is installed in the OS beyond the driver. So couldn't you have a spare HDD in the system that is running Windows 10 or even Windows 7, basically boot into that HDD if you need to make configuration changes to your raid, then reboot back into the other drive running Server 2022?
 
The RAID functions fine with just the the old school "F6" driver loaded during install. The problem is that you can't view status or repair \ rebuild without the management software. Effectively leaving the server a ticking time bomb.

Your Windows 10 is an interesting idea and I could probably make it work in a lab environment. I wouldn't feel comfortable with such a hacky solution in a customer deployment. (Which is why I had to give up on Windows drive mirror for the OS drive yesterday. Apparently it won't mirror the boot info. You can manually build the boot partitions but it still requires someone to be onsite to select a different boot option via bootloader in the event of a drive failure.)

I actually found a way to download the app store files and install the management software via powershell yesterday so I guess this is a non issue for now. Major props to this guy at ARS Technica https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=1475220. Not the most detailed of guides but good enough to get me there with some trial and error. (V19 of the install software appears to have an OS check so if anyone tries this be sure to use V18 installs, the newer of which require .net 4.8)

I'll still need to come up with a long term replacement but at least the projects already on our bench can proceed.
 
Just an FYI, having an add-in RAID card does not remove you from using the management utility. Yes, you can build raid sets from your CTRL+R but I still think having the utility installed is a good idea.
 
The problem in this particular case was that you can't install the Intel RAID management software on a server OS anymore, not that I didn't want to. I agree 100% you should have the management utilities installed.

Anything Z490 or newer needs a version of the software that is only available through the MS App Store.
 
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