Managing Terminal Services
Session Checklist
✔How to configure disk drives
✔How to use software fault tolerance
✔How to select a file system and format disks
✔How to optimize disk performance
One of the primary purposes of any operating system is to help manage the mass-storage devices in your computer, and Windows Server 2003 is no excep- tion. It provides powerful and flexible features that enable you to get the most from the hard drives installed in your computer, and in this session you’ll learn all about Windows Server 2003 disk management, file systems, and disk optimization.
You’ll also learn about Windows Server 2003’s built-in fault tolerance features, which can help keep a failed hard drive from becoming a nightmare.
Disks, Partitions, and Drives
Windows Server 2003 is designed to automatically recognize all of the hard disks installed in your computer, and it refers to each one as a disk. The first hard drive
Managing Disks, Files, and File Systems
5
is referred to as disk 0, the second as disk 1, and so forth. All new disks are referred to as basic disks, which means they can contain a limited number of parti- tions and cannot be used for special features like fault tolerance (which I’ll discuss later in this session).
Once partitions have been created on a disk, they are assigned drive letters by the operating system. These drive letters represent logical drives. Drive letters A and B are reserved for the first two floppy disk drives in your computer; the first hard drive partition is usually lettered C, the next one D, and so on. CD-ROMs and other types of drives also receive drive letters. Drive letters are the primary way of accessing the contents of a drive. All of the folders and files on a drive are refer- enced by their location on a specific drive letter. Figure 5-1 shows an example of the drive letter assignments given to hard disks, floppy disks, and CD-ROM drives on a typical server.
Figure 5-1 Drive assignments in a computer
Disk Management
Windows Server 2003 includes a special application to help you manage the disks and drives on your computer. The application is located within the Computer Management application, which is located in the Administrative Toolsfolder on the Start menu. After launching Computer Management, select the Disk
Management item to see the disks and drives attached to your computer. A typical server’s Disk Management is shown in Figure 5-2.
Figure 5-2 Disk Management
Disk Management includes only hard drives, CD-ROMs, and other drives; floppy drives are not shown.
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Part II — Saturday MorningSession 5
Breaking Up Disks with Partitions
When you install Windows Server 2003, it enables you to create at least one partitionon one of your disks. Partitions are used to break large hard drives into smaller segments. In the past, partitions were a necessity because many operating systems could only handle hard drives that were smaller than 2GB in size. Larger drives had to be divided up so that the operating system could deal with the smaller sections. Windows Server 2003 is capable of dealing with disk drives in excess of 1,000GB, so parti- tions aren’t usually necessary.
All disks must have at least one partition in order for the operating sys- tem to use them; you’ll normally create a single partition that encom- passes all of the available space on a disk.
The server in Figure 5-2 has one hard drive and a CD-ROM. The hard drive has been divided into four partitions, and three of those partitions have been assigned drive letters. The CD-ROM has also been assigned a drive letter.
Partitions without an assigned drive letter cannot be used to store files and folders.
You can use Disk Management to accomplish several important tasks:
To create a new partition, right-click the empty area of a hard disk and select Create Partition from the pop-up menu.
To change the drive letter assigned to a CD-ROM or partition, right-click it and select Drive Letters from the pop-up menu.
To convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, which supports more partitions as well as special features like fault tolerance, right-click the disk and select Convert to Dynamic Disk from the pop-up menu.
To remove a partition, right-click it and select Delete from the pop-up menu.
Never change the drive letter of a partition or delete a partition without carefully considering the consequences. Changing a drive letter or deleting a partition may break applications that have already been installed, or it may cause permanent loss of appli- cations or data.
Fault Tolerance
Unfortunately, hard drives can sometimes break. When they do, all of the informa- tion on that hard drive is often lost. Modern hard drives can be enormous, and when one breaks, you can lose an enormous amount of data. Windows Server 2003 helps prevent such losses by providing two levels of software-based fault tolerance:
mirroring and RAID 5.
Windows Server 2003’s fault tolerance features are also found on special disk controller cards, which are often installed in servers.
These controllers provide much faster and more efficient fault tol- erance, so you should use them instead of Windows Server 2003’s software-based fault tolerance whenever possible.
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