Embodiments of the present invention are directed to a method for installing a redundant data storage system. In one embodiment, the hardware configuration of a computer system is discovered during the installation of a software operating system. An instruction is received describing a first configuration of the computer system wherein a first copy of the software operating system is maintained upon a first data storage device and a second copy of the software operating system is maintained upon a second data storage device of the computer system, the first configuration of the computer system is implemented. The first configuration of the computer system is implemented concurrent with installing the software operating system.