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Tip of the Day: Configuring Disk Mirroring for Windows Server 2012

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Today’s Tip…

With the release of Storage Spaces in Server 2012, a common question is how customers can use Windows to provide resiliency for the OS volume. In Server 2012, Spaces does not support the OS volume, but customers don’t necessarily want to use a hardware RAID card or a 3rd party produce only for the OS volume. 

This new whitepaper explains step-by-step how to set up a Dynamic Disk Mirror of the operating system volume, allowing customers to avoid the expense of using a hardware RAID card:

Configuring Disk Mirroring for Windows Server 2012

Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 24, 2015
    Hi,

    I just followed this link, and in this document they say:

    "Windows does not automatically service the contents of the secondary system partition. If you install any operating system updates or service packs, be sure to manually update the secondary system partition (the mirror)..."

    Folks, this is a joke, isn't it? I setup a mirror - and have to copy certain files manually to keep the mirror in sync?

    Regards,
    Stefano
  • Anonymous
    October 16, 2015
    If it's true, it is a joke. They need to elaborate on this statement.
  • Anonymous
    January 27, 2016
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    January 28, 2016
    Follow-up: confirmed; the system drive mirror itself works fine. The "System Reserved" partition will need be mirrored manually but updates are rare.

    I'm using this for a lab server with SSDs and without a RAID controller, allowing TRIM (thanks AHCI mode) to continue to work in "RAID 1". Data volumes will use Storage Spaces.
    • Anonymous
      June 24, 2016
      I just did this as follows on windows 2012 r21. Add 2nd drive to system and boot up2. Convert primary C: (1st disk) to Dynamic disk via "Disk Management"2.1 If you get an error about insufficient space simply shrink you partition on primary c: (right-click "Shrink volume")3. Delete any partitions you may have on 2nd drive4. Right click and "Add mirror" starting with System reserved partition5. Right click and "Add mirror" now on C:That's it.
  • Anonymous
    June 02, 2016
    My conclusion: By the time any sysadmin implements this (assuming no errors), the labor cost would have far exceeded purchasing an actual RAID. I'm sure there probably are times when this will be optimal but I do not see it working for small and medium sized companies. Am I wrong here?
  • Anonymous
    June 09, 2016
    Hi,For the BIOS set-up in the referred document, I'm trying to understand the reason for step 4 and 5 of "To Update the BCD store on the primary disk". Why would you delete the entries for the "Resume from Hibernate" and "Windows Boot Loader" from the primary disk?The same entries (secondary disk) are also deleted in step 4 of the "To update the BCD store for the secondary disk", but subsequently restored/updated in step 3 of "To update the secondary plex entries on the secondary disk".Does this mean that I can boot from the secondary disk but not the primary disk? Does anyone have followed the steps (for BIOS) and have successfully booted from the primary and secondary disk by alternately removing one disk?Unless I'm missing a step, with those entries deleted (mainly the Windows Boot Loader) in the primary disk, the primary disk may not boot?I would appreciate if you can share your experience. Thanks.Regards,Max
  • Anonymous
    June 24, 2016
    I just did this as follows on windows 2012 r21. Add 2nd drive to system and boot up2. Convert primary C: (1st disk) to Dynamic disk via “Disk Management”2.1 If you get an error about insufficient space simply shrink you partition on primary c: (right-click “Shrink volume”)3. Delete any partitions you may have on 2nd drive4. Right click and “Add mirror” starting with System reserved partition5. Right click and “Add mirror” now on C:That’s it.
  • Anonymous
    July 05, 2016
    You'd be better off just using hardware RAID for your OS drive. Storage Spaces will not allow you to do software RAID on the OS drive. So the only thing you really can use is dynamic disks. However, this is an older technology that is in the process of being deprecated. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848071(v=vs.85).aspx
  • Anonymous
    July 21, 2016
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2016
    I am attempting to mirror a NON-OS partition drive with an exact physical copy- The drives are 1.5TB NVMe drives. After completing the steps in the document above, I receive the following error:Extent Disk1-01 on disk {74780285-5968-11e6-80c0-0000ba202eb7} that is part of the fault-tolerant volume D: is no longer accessible.Google is no help. TechNet is no help. Trying to find any relevant info based on the Windows Event ID is an exercise in futility.The drives are physically identical. They have not been formatted or manipulated in any way.After the formatting process (which is the last part of the "New Mirror" Wizard, the drives immediately go to "Failed Redundancy", and nothing I can do (reinitialize, reactivate) restores the drives.Any ideas?
  • Anonymous
    August 10, 2016
    Hi,I am following the guide and I am doing it for Windows Server 2012 R2.I am encountering error below:REAgentC.exe /enableFailsOperation Failed 70 An error has occurredCan someone help.Thanks
    • Anonymous
      August 16, 2018
      I have the same error 70 where I cannot enable the REAGENTC after setting the image? Did anyone sort this out following this document?
  • Anonymous
    September 09, 2016
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    October 17, 2016
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    February 22, 2017
    hello everyone i have a question on how best to perform server mirroring over the internet, like i have two sites in different locations but i want to implement server mirroring how possible do i do that?
    • Anonymous
      March 17, 2017
      read about Hyper-V replica
  • Anonymous
    March 01, 2017
    I can't believe how many pages this is. What year is it again? Surely it can't be this hard to setup a software mirror between OS disks.
    • Anonymous
      April 14, 2017
      This has to be a joke. Considering how remarkably easy it is to create a raid on CentOS I would have thought Windows server 2012 and 2016 would have implemented this!
    • Anonymous
      April 27, 2017
      It's not that hard.For some reason, they are overlooking the obvious configuration that has been used successfully for years on Windows 7/8/10 Pro and Server 2008/2012/2016 BIOS-based systems. Mirror the "System Reserved" partition as well as the Windows partition. Then when you update the BCD, your are updating both disks at the same time. No matter which disk the computer starts from, BOTH menu choices are available.This is especially helpful when the Window OS partition on the Primary becomes unbootable for some reason. Countless times I have been saved by just selecting the Secondary OS to get the system up and running and then reestablishing the mirror for the Windows partition while the system is online.As Mr. Webb stated, "At least with drive mirroring I can choose a second boot drive from the boot list and get the server back online while I find another drive to replace the dead one with."There is an open thread right now at (https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/4d6b426e-5aab-4f82-835e-d4c141e1c01f/windows-10-mirror-disk-not-showing-in-boot-menu?forum=win10itprosetup) where a client system is NOT automatically creating the BCD entry for the secondary mirrored disk and displaying an error that it cannot update the Boot Configuration Store.There is also an open support call with MS about the same subject. So far, the forums and MS Support Engineers are pointing to this document as an answer even though it isn't since the document assumes that the "System Reserved" partitions are not mirrored.Further, it does not explain how to manually create a new entry for the Windows partition on the Secondary Disk if, for some reason, Windows can't/won't create it. On a working system with mirrored "System Reserved" and "Windows" partitions (where Windows has automatically updated the BCD when the mirror was established), the BCD entries for both disks appear identical. They both point to "partition=C:" for device and osdevice. They are obviously different as the one with a description ending in "- secondary plex" will boot from the second disk. But I cannot find instructions to manually create this entry.If anyone has answers or suggestions, they would be appreciated. Thanks.
      • Anonymous
        April 28, 2017
        This issue is resolved. The solution is 1) Boot to the recovery environment. 2) Break the mirror using DiskPart. 3) Rebuild the BCD using BootRec /RebuildBCD. 4) Boot back into Windows on the Primary Disk. 5) Delete the partitions from the Secondary Disk. 6) Remove the old entry for the Secondary Disk from the BCD using BCDEdit. 7) Remirror the Primary back onto the Secondary (System Reserved and Windows OS partitions).
  • Anonymous
    May 07, 2017
    This is insane. Has 2016 improved this process any? I can't believe this has only gotten worse since 2008, almost 10 years ago.
  • Anonymous
    April 22, 2018
    i own a acer altos R520 series with 2 hdd's running win server 2012 and have attempted to mirror one hdd to another but my power source cut out when i rebooted i sadly found they had become corrupted ( incomplete mirroring) is it in anyway possible to restore my hard drives ? (it was done during the hard drive manager during booting)
  • Anonymous
    April 23, 2018
    hello i own a acer altos R520 series server running win server 2012 r2 data center with a raid key(home use) and during the booting process i have entered hard drive management (not sure what exact name is) and attempted to mirror 2 hard drives halfway through the process the power cut out after rebooting i discoverer-ed the mirror had failed and the hard drives became corrupted only had the two hard drives connected is there anyway to reverse the process/ recover the hard drives ?