Help With RAID 5 Virtual Disk

Hi MartyL,  Maximum size of a basic volume is 2TB. That is why you are getting that error. Check this link for more info:

 

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/b51311b3-ec61-402e-96cd-986c89ef40eb1033.mspx?mfr=true

 

Rgds.

 

Thanks.  Here is what I did in case anyone is interested.

 

1. Entered PERC RAID configuration at system startup and created a 20GB virtual disk and 3.4TB virtual disk, both RAID 5.

2. Installed Server 2003 the normal way, bypassing the Dell Server Setup Assistant disk.  Had to manually choose the PERC 5/i drivers at the beginning of the setup.  Installed Windows on the 20GB virtual disk.

3. Once in Windows, converted my 3.4TB virtual disk to GUID Partition Table(GPT) partition style using the diskpart command.  Created new partition using all space and formatted in NTFS.

 

The default Windows partition type is Master Boot Record(MBR), but this only supports disks up to 2TB in size.  Also Windows must be installed on a MBR partition, this is the reason for creating the two virtual disks and using GPT on the second disk.

 

Not sure if this was the correct way to do it, but it works.

I'm in the same boat as you and will try your solution later today.

 

We have a PE 2950 with 6 750GB drives. I configured a RAID 5 to use 5 of the drives and the 6th drive as a Global Spare. The Dell Installation CD sees the Virtual Disk at full size 2.7 TB but when I try to select the size, it only gives me 1024 TB. I thought the limitation on Basic disks was 2.0 TB not 1.0 TB but that's all the Dell CD can see.

 

When I use the Windows 2003 CD, I load the drivers for the 5i PERC controller but Windows can't find the partition to begin the installation. So right now I have Windows 2003 on a 1.0 TB partition and would like to use the rest of the space but can't figure out how to do it until I read your post.

 

I'll give that a shot.

Two cents...

Raid 5 is not as safe as it used to be due to the large number of disks/sectors of modern arrays. The safest practice is to place the OS and programs running on a raid 1 with smaller capacity disks and the data on the large raid 5 array. The raid 1 set provides two safety measures, a two disk raid 1 is inherently safer, as a complete failure of two disks in a relatively short time is near impossible barring overheating and electric power anomalies, then should a virus, corruption , power surge, or overheating  hit the raid 1,  the raid 5 remains fully intact...rebuild the raid 1, the raid 5 is still accessible. In years past I placed the Os and data partitions on the same array, I lost two server arrays due to this, never again