reanimationxp
n00b
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2007
- Messages
- 7
Hey all,
I have (or had) a 3x750GB RAID5 array set up on an nForce 780i motherboard, using nVidia's RAID5. Upon setting up the array I thought it was hardware RAID, and was thus surprised when the performance sucked, but that's quite a while ago.
I recently bought a 4th 750GB drive, hoping to extend my existing 1.3TB RAID5 volume by an additional 750GB, bringing my total usable space to just over 2TB (with a drive's worth of space being used by parity). nVidia's control panel would not let me add the newly found drive to the existing array, so I figured array extending was something that was not supported on the drivers. Pain in the ass, but no big deal.
I backed up my ~1.2 Terabytes of data, and erased the array. Using the in-bios RAID utility, I created the new array and added all 4 of my drives to it successfully. However, when I went back into Windows XP, I see a partitionable space of only 54GB. From within Windows, I decided to use the nVidia utility to erase the array and try again. After erasing, I went to add all 4 disks to a new RAID5 array, and discovered that the nVidia utility would only allow me to add 3 of them, and the "Next >" option was greyed out if I tried to add the 4th. After doing some research, I've discovered that the maximum volume size for a basic disk in Windows XP is 2TB, and I believe this is why the utility is not allowing me to add my 4th disk.
I then looked into ways to breach this 2TB limit, and Dynamic Disks was one of the options. Since I don't have "real" hardware RAID5 anyway, this is an option I would consider, but I have a couple concerns. I upgrade systems fairly frequently, and have heard horror stories of trying to move Dynamic disks, particularly in arrays, to new machines. I figured any motherboard with an nVidia chipset would happily accept my nForce RAID5 array, which is why I chose to use it rather than dynamic disks to begin with.
Can anyone tell me how easy it is to transfer dynamic disk arrays between windows installations, in the case that the first install should crash? What are the disadvantages of using dynamic disks? If I fronted the money for a nice hardware RAID5 solution, would I be able to breach this 2TB limit? I don't have a problem busting partitions into <2TB sizes, but would like to have it all in one array. Right now it appears my best option is to go back to using 3 disks in RAID5, and use my new 750gb as a simple sata, which sucks. I want redundancy should I have a physical drive failure AND ALSO be able to move my array to a new box should Windows crash.
Halp!
I have (or had) a 3x750GB RAID5 array set up on an nForce 780i motherboard, using nVidia's RAID5. Upon setting up the array I thought it was hardware RAID, and was thus surprised when the performance sucked, but that's quite a while ago.
I recently bought a 4th 750GB drive, hoping to extend my existing 1.3TB RAID5 volume by an additional 750GB, bringing my total usable space to just over 2TB (with a drive's worth of space being used by parity). nVidia's control panel would not let me add the newly found drive to the existing array, so I figured array extending was something that was not supported on the drivers. Pain in the ass, but no big deal.
I backed up my ~1.2 Terabytes of data, and erased the array. Using the in-bios RAID utility, I created the new array and added all 4 of my drives to it successfully. However, when I went back into Windows XP, I see a partitionable space of only 54GB. From within Windows, I decided to use the nVidia utility to erase the array and try again. After erasing, I went to add all 4 disks to a new RAID5 array, and discovered that the nVidia utility would only allow me to add 3 of them, and the "Next >" option was greyed out if I tried to add the 4th. After doing some research, I've discovered that the maximum volume size for a basic disk in Windows XP is 2TB, and I believe this is why the utility is not allowing me to add my 4th disk.
I then looked into ways to breach this 2TB limit, and Dynamic Disks was one of the options. Since I don't have "real" hardware RAID5 anyway, this is an option I would consider, but I have a couple concerns. I upgrade systems fairly frequently, and have heard horror stories of trying to move Dynamic disks, particularly in arrays, to new machines. I figured any motherboard with an nVidia chipset would happily accept my nForce RAID5 array, which is why I chose to use it rather than dynamic disks to begin with.
Can anyone tell me how easy it is to transfer dynamic disk arrays between windows installations, in the case that the first install should crash? What are the disadvantages of using dynamic disks? If I fronted the money for a nice hardware RAID5 solution, would I be able to breach this 2TB limit? I don't have a problem busting partitions into <2TB sizes, but would like to have it all in one array. Right now it appears my best option is to go back to using 3 disks in RAID5, and use my new 750gb as a simple sata, which sucks. I want redundancy should I have a physical drive failure AND ALSO be able to move my array to a new box should Windows crash.
Halp!