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5TB hard drive support in a Precision T7400?
I have a T7400 workstation with the onboard LSI 1068E RAID controller. Last month I had four 1TB drives configured as a pair of 2TB RAID 0 volumes, but I ran out of space. Before doing my homework I ordered and installed four 5TB drives and tried to configure them as a pair of 10TB RAID 0 volumes. I was dismayed to learn of the 2TB size limit supported by the LSI controller, but I needed a functioning workstation, so I went ahead and created the 4TB volumes and migrated my existing files to the new 4TB volumes -- for now.
I'd really like to take advantage of the full 20TB of space I purchased, so here is my first question: is the 2TB size limit a function of the LSI controller in specific, or is it a limit of the T7400 motherboard chipset in general? In other words, can I get around the current problem with an internal RAID controller installed into one of the PCI Express 2.0x16 slots? Would that give me access to the full 20TB of space and do it at a speed equal to -- or at least close to -- the speed of the onboard LSI controller? (I do have a video card in one of the two slots and an external 3-port USB 3.0 controller card in the other, but I think I could move the USB card to the PCI Express x8 slot with little or no real-world speed loss.)
If so, does anyone have a recommendation as to which models and/or makes of RAID cards I should research for use in that PCI Express 2.0 slot? I'm a professional photographer now working in 4K video, so, while it would not be accurate to say that my budget is unlimited, reliability and speed are much more important factors that trying to find a "budget" controller.
speedstep
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October 31st, 2016 11:00
The 2TB limit is a limitation of the drivers. INTEL RST has the same limitations for Raid volumes.
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/218615en?language=en_US
theflash1932
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November 6th, 2016 06:00
I know this is late, but ...
You need a controller that will support +2TB drives. Dell controller did not until the H7x0 controllers. If the drives are 4k drives, then you'd need an even newer controller (H710+), as the H700 controller only supports 512e. They may or may not work on the old T7400. I would suggest trying a newer LSI card that supports +2TB drives.
The other thing is that the T7400 does not support UEFI, so your OS "disk" will need to be less than 2TB.
FYI ... RAID 0 is striping ... RAID 0 with 4x1TB drives would give you 4TB of space, not 2TB. Your RAID card could do RAID 10, which is what I think you meant and would make more sense with the numbers you posted.
speedstep
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November 7th, 2016 07:00
The T7400 does not have UEFI bios and Does not support Booting from partitions larger than 2TB. The T7400 is from the windows XP / Vista Era before 2009.
PH-Graphics
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November 10th, 2016 08:00
Thanks fro the reply, but I don't understand one reference: the mention of 4k drives vs. 512e. Could you elaborate.
Also, the boot drive limitation is not an issue, as my OS disk is a 512GB SSD, not my data (RAID) drives.
Finally, just to clarify, my four 1TB drives were configured as a pair of 2TB volumes, not as a single volume.
Thanks.
PH-Graphics
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November 10th, 2016 08:00
Speedstep, thanks, but booting is not an issue. My OS drive is a separate 512GB SSD. For the 5TB disks and the RAID volumes I want to create with them file storage of my own data files will be the only use.
speedstep
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November 10th, 2016 09:00
If booting is not an issue then Get an X4 USB 3.1 controller to replace the internal raid card and then Add external USB 3.1 JBOD with port multiplier. There isn't any path to beyond 2TB for the old raid or INTEL RST Raid.
https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Technology-Connector-ECU05-Components/dp/B01HZ0XVJO/
You want X4 because you don't want to be bottlnecked at the BUS.
Supports HDD greater than 2TB and RAID volume can be up to 15.0TB (using 3TB drives) Its driverless all of the Raid Functions are handled by the controller.
http://www.datoptic.com/ec/usb3-and-esata-to-5-sata-drive-hardware-raid-jbod-controller.html
http://www.datoptic.com/ec/tb-esata-usb3-0-fw-5x-trayless-raid-jbod-enclosure-windows-mac-linux.html
Rogspaugh
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January 5th, 2017 19:00
Can't answer your RAID situation-it is limited to 2TB drives. However, I did put a 3TB drive in my machine and connected it to one of the SATA connectors (the ones for the DVD drive). It then recognizes all 3TB. I suppose if you could spare two of those inputs (there are three), then you could us Windows Disk manager to create a software RAID. Worth a try!
rdunnill
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January 7th, 2017 12:00
Some drives now have 4096-octet sectors, versus the traditional 512 octets.