Maximum PC

Hello everyone. I have four 2 TB hard drives. I want to create two striped arrays (RAID 0) across all four disks. One 7 TB array and one 1 TB array (I know the actual formatted capacity will be less). I was told to this this in Disk Management under Computer Management in Windows 7, but I can't figure this out. How do I do this?

Thanks!

In Raid 0 if one disk fails you loose all data on all the disks...why would you want to do this?

Nasty

Sorry....Four 2 TB drives will not equate into 8 TB of available space within a Raid. At least that's how I'm reading things when I'm seeing that you want One 7 TB array and one 1 TB array.

For that, you would just setup your disks under JBOD, which isn't a RAID, but just a function of your controller, and just partition and format like you normally would..although I do believe there is a caveat here is how big of a drive can you create this way?

Speed good sir... though your right.. if it goes tits up.... That sucks huge... huge balls... Raid0 wouldnt work that way... you could only do 2 raid0 arrays... 4tb max each... They have to have same drive sizes in order to stripe.... otherwise... if one is full and the other isnt... it would basically blue screen because it got an access denied because... guess what, no space left... Only thing you could really do is the non-raid setup... or extending volumes across the drives via disk management...

Raid one would give you 2 arrays... 2TB max per array... as 1 drive is dedicated mirror... so your losing half capacity... but gaining backup(which is always a plus)... you probably want to run this raid 5... you would have 1 volume but your capacity would be 6tb... the 3rd drive would be parity drive to restore functionality if 1 drive fails... its still in striped mode but you have the backup capability

If you want some more in depth info... read this... it would answer alot of questions that will pop up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#RAID_10_versus_RAID_5_in_Relational_Databases

To answer his question, the way described would require a single drive out of the four 2TB drives and then to partition that single drive either when installing windows or withing the disk manager (which is in device manager). You would not be actually creating two arrays, but rather creating 2 partitions on 1 array. Which as long as you were not accessing both partitions at the same time would net you the same performance for either partition.

Now as stated, not exactly the safest way for data storage, especially of data you do not want to lose.

As for the size limitations, technically Windows 7 supports up to 256TB of data, but there are a few requiresments. All must be included in some form. 64bit OS and CPU, EFI, and Dynamic Partitions or GPT (GUID Partition Table). The 64bit part is easy enough. My BIOS supports EFI, but things never work right when enabled, so I never use it and have not played with it.

GPT I have never tried. Here is an MSDN QA faq for it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows ... e/gg463525

As an alternative to GPT you can also convert the drive to a dynamic disk in disk manager, but that always caused me a headache. And usually after I got comfortable.

Y don't u do a RAID 5 with those 4 2TB HDD's. A RAID 5 would give u, i think, 6TB of storage with 1 drive of fault tolerance and also increased read and write speeds.

Just so you know, you wouldnt have performance loss with multiple partitions in 1 array.... I dont know where you got that notion... but your dealing with 4 disks... it balances out... If it was 1 disk... yes, you could have performance problems... especially when hardcore accessing stuff all across the disk.... it would be similar to a heavily fragmented drive

you need a controller that supports partitioned disks. I believe Intel's controller does, but I'm not certain. you partition the disks such that you have 250GB partition and 1,750GB partition. with each disk partitioned thusly, you then create two raid0 arrays, one with the 250GB partitions such that they total 1TB, and one with the 1,750 GB partitions such that they total 7TB. if one disk dies, you lose the total sum of both arrays, and therefore, unless you have a solid backup solution for the 7TB partition and some great need to keep it separate from the 1TB partition, you're better off with just one large array. you could also create a raid10 or raid5 across the 1,750 for reduced capacity but increased fault tolerance, which would be my advice if you're insistent upon this approach.

Do you understand how to create raids... nothing of what you said will work... your talking about a form of software raid that has nothing to do with raid0, raid 5, or raid 10.... Its strickly just partitioning and extending drives... no raid involved... Which will do nothing but cause problems because there will be no form of backup or fault tolerance... Also... Partition tables are wiped when a raid is built unless done through software within windows(which can be risky/destructive) where as doing it through bios IS destructive(meaning full rebuild required, all partitions wiped) In other words... you would have to make the raid array, Then partition the drives within the raid

Please explain this, if im wrong, id like to understand how you do it... because every raid controller i have ever touched(which is a few thousand) has not had that kind of option or i have overlooked it

That's the way I understand things. Raid controllers deal with Volumes (disks) OSes will deal with partitions (primary, extended)

partition tables shouldn't be a huge deal though, although depending on what you did, recovery may end up being challenging with a partition.

I did a little research, and indeed Intel raid chipsets can use partitions, read the second paragraph of the following wikipedia article for quick confirmation, or read the manual on your LGA1155 (or most 1156, 1366, and 775) motherboard if you don't trust wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Rapid_Storage_Technology

This is a non-raid as spoken about..., Actually this is more of a software raid than anything which is not always rocksolid... as stated before, this matrix raid/Intel rapid storage is a firmware/software style that is difficult at best to keep stable, which is why i always steer clear of it...It states it can create raid volumes through the software(which i have done in a raid 1 enviroment) however... raid5 or raid10 or raid0 would be tricky... I cant see it doing it online(As in active windows) with the software(obvious windows crashes) I would think the raid would still have to do it via the maxtrix raid bios(which is technically still hardware raid) i could be wrong on that... but that would scare the crap out of me knowing how windows works.. it would just create bsod's due to access restrictions... it would halt it because files would go missing while dispersing across the raid array

As for your poke about partitions... apparently you misread what i stated... You would have to make the array first, then partition it... Your partition tables would be borked once you created the new raid array.... Creation of an array is DESTRUCTIVE... meaning all data is lost

Maybe i read what you stated wrong... But if you partitioned before creating a raid, u'd lose it unless doing it through some form of software raid... Which specifically states that raid arrays are made within the Intel maxtrix bios(just so im 100% clear what you stated wouldnt work)

None of this matters unless your board I/O is UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). BIOS (Basic Input Output System)/MBR (Master Boot Record) will limit you to 2TB partitions. Does your motherboard have UEFI, or BIOS? After that we can argue over what the best config for you is.

I would strongly suggest a RAID 0+1 array. Striping and redundancy will give you both performance and data security. IMO 4 striped discs is a horrible idea. It's a 400% increase in the chance that you will lose ALL of your data!

Seem to be a lot of these questions floating around today....