Creating large NTFS partition from an 8 drive Dell PERC raid 5 array?

Question

I have a PowerEdge 2900 with 8 500GB SATA drives in a RAID 5 array. Usable storage is about 3.3TB as per the RAID config tools. When installing Windows Server 2003, I allocated 25GB to the boot partition and installed the OS.

When in computer management > disk management, I can only create a 2TB partition from the 3.3TB availble space.

I would like to have a single 3.3TB partition to store our data files. What is the best way to accomplish this?

I would rather not create two separate hardware raid 5 arrays with 4 drives each and then create a spanning volume in windows as I'll lose more usable space this way.

thanks for any assistance.....

jmwills · Answer

Sounds like a BIOS limitation.

Dev Mgr · Answer

Upgrade to SP1 of Windows 2003 and then convert the disk to GPT (right click the disk in disk management and you'll see the GPT option; can only be done if there are no partitions on the disk). After this you can make volumes larger than 2 TB.

If you're trying to boot from that disk as well (just a seperate partition), you have 2 choices; upgrade to dynamic disk (not the best choice in my opinion but may be the easiest choice) or destroy the virtual disk, create a small virtual disk (25GB or so like you mentioned you were using), and then another virtual disk for the rest. This latter option will allow you to have your boot drive on legacy MBR (I don't believe current OSes can boot from a GPT disk) and have your data on a GPT disk (only supported with W2K3 SP1 (and R2 therefor) and Linux 2.6 kernel OSes (may have other requirements under Linux, but RHEL4 and SLES10 (and 9 too I think) support it).

FikseGTS · Answer

thanks for the info.... I created a single raid 5 array in the perc manager, then created 3 virtual disks, 25GB, 1.6TB and 1.6TB, I installed the OS on the 25GB partition, then in windows, I converted the 1.6TB virtual disks to dynamic, then created a single spanned volume from those to create the 3.2TB single volume....

I'm not thrilled about using microsoft to span those two 1.6TB virtual disks...

from what you said, I can create a 25GB partition for the boot disk/os, and create a single 3.2TB virtual disk in the perc manager, then in windows, convert that 3.2TB virtual disk to GPT and format it for one single 3.2TB NTFS partition?

correct?

Message Edited by FikseGTS on 11-07-2006 08:53 AM

Dev Mgr · Answer

Unless you have a lot of data already on there, I'd go back, destroy the 2 x 1.6 and create a single 3.2 and make it GPT. Dynamic disk on top of hardware raid can have some odd side effects (read; data problems).

FikseGTS · Answer

thanks, that's what I did, all set with the 3.2TB GPT volume....

MichaelPollard · Answer

Sounds like problem solved.   But for those who read later:   The additional drives could have been added to the existing array using the Reconfigure option in the OpenManage application. It won't give this option if the array is still initializing, like with a newly created array - wait until it's done and try again. When we tried stopping the initilization before it was complete, the needed options were given but the addition was unsuccessful.   Yes, to have a single partition, the 1.xTB existing NTFS partition(s) would need to be deleted and recreated as GPT after the expansion, but at least this would avoid reinstalling Windows, provided the boot partition is already reasonably small. (Mine was provided at 12GB.)

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Creating large NTFS partition from an 8 drive Dell PERC raid 5 array?

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