Add software raid later?

[newtown]

I'm planning on purchasing a Dell Poweredge T110 but don't want to stump for more than the base hard drive given Dell's markup on parts. Unfortunately, they won't install their software raid 1 controller unless I purchase an additonal drive. Is it possible to install the Perc S100 on my own or am I gonna run into problems. As a heads up, I don't have any prior experience with servers.

Here are my raid customization options for the server:

 

[someone19]

Software raid stinks - that being said for a server your going to depend on for business purposes, you need HARDWARE raid.

If it were me facing these choices, I'd probably get the dell with the single drive, image the drive fresh after I got it, and then install the hardware raid card with the other drives, then restore the image and go from there.

These choices are up to you, and I'm not familiar with the poweredge line personally. You also won't get Dell support for the additional card and harddrives, which is included in the price of the pre-installed components.

My $0.02

 

[gtvr]

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/Dell_Software_RAID_Functionality_White_Paper.pdf

"PERC S100 is a pure software solution, supported by Peak P55 express or ICH10r chipset. Option ROM for PERC S100 is integrated as part of system BIOS and an onboard SATA controller is used as channel to transfer the data to HDD. To make the PERC S100 functional, change the SATA setting to RAID mode in the system BIOS"

also

"PERC S300 is a hybrid solution obtained by a firmware change for the LSI 1068E SAS controller. The advantage over PERC S100 is that SAS disks are supported in PERC S300."

 

[stevchik]

I'm planning on purchasing a Dell Poweredge T110 but don't want to stump for more than the base hard drive given Dell's markup on parts. Unfortunately, they won't install their software raid 1 controller unless I purchase an additonal drive. Is it possible to install the Perc S100 on my own or am I gonna run into problems. As a heads up, I don't have any prior experience with servers.

Here are my raid customization options for the server:

http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/8259/raidf.jpg

Hello,

Did you end up buying and upgrading this server? I am concidering doing this as option as well. I was thinking of buying a base Poweredge T110 model with Xeon x 3440 and then adding my RAM and HD. Please let me know what were your experiences.

Thank you