virtualbox.org

I would like to know if a virtual raid (by hardware emulation) is possible using virtualbox?

In other words, I would like to have two vdi files (two virtual hard disks) at two different locations on the network. The one vdi file will be a constant live mirror of the other, Raid 1.

In the event of the failure of the main vdi due to harddrive failure on the host at the one location, I still have the other vdi to run off.

Thanks, Darrin

Aren't you really wanting a failover cluster?

I am a little new at this but isn't in a failover clustering that several or more computers share a common file system. I am looking to emulate raid 1 in virtualbox.

I am using windows xp in virtualbox (host os: windows 7 professional).

thanks, Darrin

Well raid 1 is a mirror (non-striped) and would require being in the same computer. You said that you wanted it "at two different locations on the network" which AFAIK can't happen.

VirtualBox provides teleporting but that is not what I would consider failover because you would need to teleport the original while it was still running. It works great for other issues that you find where you can teleport to a second machine while you update or repair the original machine.

Now you can create a raid 1 in the same guest but to be honest I don't see the need. If you keep a good backup VDI of the original it only takes seconds to replace the bad one.

"Now you can create a raid 1 in the same guest but to be honest I don't see the need"

Actually that would help a lot, If I could put the one virtual drive on one physical drive and the other virtual drive on a different physical drive; that would provide my need. If one of my physical drives failed, I can still have the mirror image of the virtual environment on one of the other physical drives to use.

So how do you create a raid 1 on the same guest?

Thanks, Darrin

Software raid should be as simple as creating another VDI (HDD) for the guest and choosing to mirror it in Windows. Windows 7 Pro or better is needed.
Put the second VDI (HDD) where ever you want to.
I would expect performance a hit though due to it being virtual (not sure about that since I don't use software raid).

Better solution would be to mirror the host, but you know what you want.

Go HERE to see how to actually setup the mirror

Thanks for the info. Darrin