OS Installation, Reinstall, and RAID on Dedicated Servers

Dedicated servers can be delivered with a pre-installed OS or blank disks for your custom image. Nexelya coordinates reinstalls through our provisioning pipeline or remote hands—submit clear OS version, edition, and partitioning requirements.

Self-service ISO install via IPMI virtual media is possible on many machines when your team has BMC access and local expertise.

Hardware RAID controllers (Broadcom/LSI, Adaptec) offer RAID1, RAID5, RAID10 depending on drive count. Enter CTRL-R or similar at POST to create virtual disks before OS setup. Install vendor drivers in the OS for monitoring.

RAID is not backup—mirror protects against single disk failure, not deletion or ransomware. Pair RAID with off-server backups.

• RAID1: two disks, read performance, 50% capacity.
• RAID10: four+ disks, performance and redundancy for databases.
• JBOD: maximum capacity, no hardware redundancy—use software RAID or ZFS cautiously.

Back up all data before any reinstall ticket. Confirm license keys for Windows and control panels. Reinstalls wipe local disks unless remote hands is instructed otherwise for data partitions.

After reinstall, reapply hardening baselines, restore applications from backups, and update DNS if the primary IP changed (uncommon on same machine).

ext4 remains the default for Linux general purpose. XFS suits large sequential I/O. ZFS on Linux is powerful but memory-hungry—size RAM accordingly on dedicated hardware. Windows Server uses NTFS or ReFS per role.

Run smartctl or vendor disk diagnostics, stress-test memory with memtest via IPMI boot, and verify network throughput with iperf3 to a trusted peer. Document baseline performance for future regression comparisons.

Custom partitioning for databases (separate /var/lib/mysql mount) should be requested at install time—reshaping live production disks is risky.

UEFI vs legacy BIOS affects boot entries after reinstall—confirm firmware mode before opening tickets.

License keys for Windows Server must be supplied or selected from licensed images when ordering.