How to implement GPT disk larger than 2TB
Hi all,
I have a desktop PC running Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit. I have about 4TB worth of storage on internal drives (SATA) inside the PC.
I would now like to create a backup solution. My requirement is to have ONE external device to backup the 4TB.
I bought a dual drive external casing (Vantec 3MX series) that hosts two identical 2TB drives.
My intention is to combine the drives in a Raid0 configuration on the device itself. The device supports the following modes:
•RAID0 - Two drives are striped. This gives one drive letter with 4TB of storage with 2 x 2TB drives. This is what I want.
•RAID1 - Two drives are configured for redundancy. This gives one drive letter with 2TB with 2 x 2TB drives
•JBOD - Not sure what this is. Similar to RAID above.
•Normal - The two drives installed in the device each show up seperately on the PC. Therefor, I would see two 2TB drives.
I installed the drives, configured the device for RAID0 and attached to my PC. In Disk Management, I converted the disk from MBR to GPT but Windows will only give me around 1679MB.
I've been reading forums, articles and blogs for the last 6 hours and the only recommendation I could find was to use a GPT disk. I've done this but I can't get access to my 4TB.
As a test, I configured my external device to use NORMAL mode instead of RAID0. As soon as I did this, I could see both the disks seperately each registering 1862MB. This tells me that the physical disks are fine and that both bays in the external device are working.
How can get Windows to see the 4TB hosted inside the external device when configured to use RAID0?
Many thanks
02---Disk-in-RAID0-as-GPT.JPG
I have a desktop PC running Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit. I have about 4TB worth of storage on internal drives (SATA) inside the PC.
I would now like to create a backup solution. My requirement is to have ONE external device to backup the 4TB.
I bought a dual drive external casing (Vantec 3MX series) that hosts two identical 2TB drives.
My intention is to combine the drives in a Raid0 configuration on the device itself. The device supports the following modes:
•RAID0 - Two drives are striped. This gives one drive letter with 4TB of storage with 2 x 2TB drives. This is what I want.
•RAID1 - Two drives are configured for redundancy. This gives one drive letter with 2TB with 2 x 2TB drives
•JBOD - Not sure what this is. Similar to RAID above.
•Normal - The two drives installed in the device each show up seperately on the PC. Therefor, I would see two 2TB drives.
I installed the drives, configured the device for RAID0 and attached to my PC. In Disk Management, I converted the disk from MBR to GPT but Windows will only give me around 1679MB.
I've been reading forums, articles and blogs for the last 6 hours and the only recommendation I could find was to use a GPT disk. I've done this but I can't get access to my 4TB.
As a test, I configured my external device to use NORMAL mode instead of RAID0. As soon as I did this, I could see both the disks seperately each registering 1862MB. This tells me that the physical disks are fine and that both bays in the external device are working.
How can get Windows to see the 4TB hosted inside the external device when configured to use RAID0?
Many thanks
02---Disk-in-RAID0-as-GPT.JPG
ASKER
Hi
Thanks for the input.
I did configure the device as JBOD just now but I still get about the same capacity available.
So in short JBOD does not solve the probolem. Do you have any other ideas?
Thanks
Thanks for the input.
I did configure the device as JBOD just now but I still get about the same capacity available.
So in short JBOD does not solve the probolem. Do you have any other ideas?
Thanks
That is not the full answer. You cannot make 2x2TB drives show as 4tb on one logical volume using raid. Using JBOD, might as well not use raid. You are just spanning the drives for a volume. You still take the performance hit as compared to raid. In order to have the mirrored (or stripped) drives give you one logical volume of 4tb, you would need 2x4tb drives. In case of one of the mirrored drives failure, you would break the mirror and replace the bad drive. Breaking the mirror may be a problem however, unless it is done outside the OS (bios or raid configuration utility seen at bootup, ex. ctrl-M).
There is no 'fault tolerance on Raid0 or Raid1. Raid 5, on the other hand would require at least 3 drives of the same capacity. If you have 3x2tb drives, you would have 4gigs of usable space. Third drive manages the mirror/stripping. And you would have fault tolerance. If the 'managing' drive fails, replace and one of the other remaining drives is promoted. Rebuild. You are still up and running. Since you are using the extra drives for backup only, performance would be good, still with no downtime.
There is no 'fault tolerance on Raid0 or Raid1. Raid 5, on the other hand would require at least 3 drives of the same capacity. If you have 3x2tb drives, you would have 4gigs of usable space. Third drive manages the mirror/stripping. And you would have fault tolerance. If the 'managing' drive fails, replace and one of the other remaining drives is promoted. Rebuild. You are still up and running. Since you are using the extra drives for backup only, performance would be good, still with no downtime.
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ASKER
Hi Wolfhere,
Thanks for your feedback.
I disagree with you though. Your statement " You cannot make 2x2TB drives show as 4tb on one logical volume using raid" is not accurate in my mind. Using two 2TB drives in a RAID0 should defenitely show one logical volume as 4TB.
I actually have done this. On the same PC that I'm attaching the external casing to, I have 4x1TB internal SATA drives in RAID0 configuration. This configuration gives me a drive D of 4TB.
It is exactly this drive of 4TB that I wish to backup to an external device. That is why I bought the Vantec external casing with two 2TB drives and why I logged this forum post.
If you wish I will screenshot my Disk Management showing this 4TB drive later today and attach the screenshot for you.
Many thanks for the feedback though
Thanks for your feedback.
I disagree with you though. Your statement " You cannot make 2x2TB drives show as 4tb on one logical volume using raid" is not accurate in my mind. Using two 2TB drives in a RAID0 should defenitely show one logical volume as 4TB.
I actually have done this. On the same PC that I'm attaching the external casing to, I have 4x1TB internal SATA drives in RAID0 configuration. This configuration gives me a drive D of 4TB.
It is exactly this drive of 4TB that I wish to backup to an external device. That is why I bought the Vantec external casing with two 2TB drives and why I logged this forum post.
If you wish I will screenshot my Disk Management showing this 4TB drive later today and attach the screenshot for you.
Many thanks for the feedback though
ASKER
Hi garycase,
Thank you for your input as well.
On your first comment:
>>> "Reset your external Vantec 3MX and be sure you've configured it for RAID-0. What you're seeing looks like you have it set for RAID-1."
I have done this several times. The Vantect device has two switches (almost like jumpers) and a reset button. With the devices' power on, toggle the switches to configure the mode you want and then press the reset button. The device then restarts into the configured mode. The nice thing about the Vantec device is that it has LED indicators showing exactly which mode is configured. I've done this several times - I'm quite confident that I have RAID0 configured.
On your second comment:
How are you connecting the 3MX?
I've been connecting using eSATA the whole weekend. At some point last night, I wanted to see if I configure the external Vantec casing to normal mode (two drives are presented to the PC seperately) if it would actually show the two drives seperately (as two seperate drive letters) without problem. I did this because I started to suspect that one of the casing's two hard drive bays may be faulty. I configured normal mode but could only see one drive. After hours of reading I discovered that I probably have an issue with my eSATA port's ability to do "port multiplying". Therefore I switched to USB. I could then see both drives in normal mode. Each showing as a seperate drive letter with about 1.8TB available. I reconfigured as RAID0 but still the single drive presented bu RAID0 totalled about 1.7TB.
So... No luck still.
Thanks
Thank you for your input as well.
On your first comment:
>>> "Reset your external Vantec 3MX and be sure you've configured it for RAID-0. What you're seeing looks like you have it set for RAID-1."
I have done this several times. The Vantect device has two switches (almost like jumpers) and a reset button. With the devices' power on, toggle the switches to configure the mode you want and then press the reset button. The device then restarts into the configured mode. The nice thing about the Vantec device is that it has LED indicators showing exactly which mode is configured. I've done this several times - I'm quite confident that I have RAID0 configured.
On your second comment:
How are you connecting the 3MX?
I've been connecting using eSATA the whole weekend. At some point last night, I wanted to see if I configure the external Vantec casing to normal mode (two drives are presented to the PC seperately) if it would actually show the two drives seperately (as two seperate drive letters) without problem. I did this because I started to suspect that one of the casing's two hard drive bays may be faulty. I configured normal mode but could only see one drive. After hours of reading I discovered that I probably have an issue with my eSATA port's ability to do "port multiplying". Therefore I switched to USB. I could then see both drives in normal mode. Each showing as a seperate drive letter with about 1.8TB available. I reconfigured as RAID0 but still the single drive presented bu RAID0 totalled about 1.7TB.
So... No luck still.
Thanks
ASKER
HI dlethe,
Thanks for your input.
Regarding your comments:
>>>" It appears that you now have a single 4TB volume that is carved into C, D, and free space"
and
>>>"it looks like the O/S is confused"
I assume you get this from my screenshots. They may be a little misleading. Let me give you some background on the system I have: I have one PC with 5 physical disks internally. The first is a smaller disk (about 300GB or something) that I use for my C-Drive. My OS (Win 7 Ent 64Bit) boots from this disk. I do not at all boot from any RAID configuration. The C Drive volume is on this single physical disk configured as a BASIC MBR disk. The additional four physical internal disks are all identical SATA disks. They're all 1TB, 7200RPM,32MB Cache SATA drives. These 4 drives are configured in RAID0 to form one 4TB D Drive. The RAID functionality is provided by my INTEL motherboard. I store all my data on this 4TB RAID array. It is this D Drive that I wish to backup to an external device. I will update the backup once a week or so. This is why I bought the external device with two 2TB drives so that I have 4TB internally and also 4TB externally to write the backup to. If only I can get the external device to register all 4TB. That's why I logged this forum post.
On your other comment:
>>>"RAID1 provides fault tolerance. You want to select that option. It is just plain stupid for a backup system not to have redundancy"
I am not a technical expert but I do fully understand the differences between RAID0 and RAID1. I also agree with you that RAID1 is a safer option. RAID1 is not what I want to do in this case though. Should I configure my external device as RAID1, I would only have 2TB. You cannot backup a 4TB source to a 2TB destination. I won't fit. The external device will not store any live copies of data. The external devices (RAID0 / 4TB) needs to be an exact copy my internal 4TB storage which is used for storing live data. This means, that I will always have two copies of my data. For now, this is safe enough for me. Should a drive on the external device fail, I will replace the drive, format the entire device and copy everything to the device again. At the moment then, I defenitely want to utilize the external device with two 2TB drives in RAID0 configuration.
Let me know if you have any idea on how to achieve this please.
Many thanks
Thanks for your input.
Regarding your comments:
>>>" It appears that you now have a single 4TB volume that is carved into C, D, and free space"
and
>>>"it looks like the O/S is confused"
I assume you get this from my screenshots. They may be a little misleading. Let me give you some background on the system I have: I have one PC with 5 physical disks internally. The first is a smaller disk (about 300GB or something) that I use for my C-Drive. My OS (Win 7 Ent 64Bit) boots from this disk. I do not at all boot from any RAID configuration. The C Drive volume is on this single physical disk configured as a BASIC MBR disk. The additional four physical internal disks are all identical SATA disks. They're all 1TB, 7200RPM,32MB Cache SATA drives. These 4 drives are configured in RAID0 to form one 4TB D Drive. The RAID functionality is provided by my INTEL motherboard. I store all my data on this 4TB RAID array. It is this D Drive that I wish to backup to an external device. I will update the backup once a week or so. This is why I bought the external device with two 2TB drives so that I have 4TB internally and also 4TB externally to write the backup to. If only I can get the external device to register all 4TB. That's why I logged this forum post.
On your other comment:
>>>"RAID1 provides fault tolerance. You want to select that option. It is just plain stupid for a backup system not to have redundancy"
I am not a technical expert but I do fully understand the differences between RAID0 and RAID1. I also agree with you that RAID1 is a safer option. RAID1 is not what I want to do in this case though. Should I configure my external device as RAID1, I would only have 2TB. You cannot backup a 4TB source to a 2TB destination. I won't fit. The external device will not store any live copies of data. The external devices (RAID0 / 4TB) needs to be an exact copy my internal 4TB storage which is used for storing live data. This means, that I will always have two copies of my data. For now, this is safe enough for me. Should a drive on the external device fail, I will replace the drive, format the entire device and copy everything to the device again. At the moment then, I defenitely want to utilize the external device with two 2TB drives in RAID0 configuration.
Let me know if you have any idea on how to achieve this please.
Many thanks
ASKER
Experts,
I've provided quite a lot of feedback to each response I received on my initial post. Please review each other's feedback - it may give you an idea on how to help solve the problem.
Seeing that we're struggling to come up with a solution, I will increase the points to 400 now.
Thanks
I've provided quite a lot of feedback to each response I received on my initial post. Please review each other's feedback - it may give you an idea on how to help solve the problem.
Seeing that we're struggling to come up with a solution, I will increase the points to 400 now.
Thanks
Maybe I missed it before, but what exactly were your steps after setting RAID0? After coverting the disk to GPT, did you expand the partition? Did you reformat the drive?
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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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It is problem of the Vantec case definitely. It's current firmware cannot work with drives bigger than 2048GB. Update the firmware or replace the case to the one that does not need this update.
ASKER
Hi experts,
Thank you very much for all the additional input!
I am away from that machine at the moment. I will be back within the next 4 hours then I will review all your comments and test the suggestions made.
It seems current recommendations are INTEL firmware and drivers, USB drivers and firmware on the Vantec casing itself. I'll put these to use this evening (South-African time) and report back. I will start with Vantec casing firmware.
noxcho: I really don't want to replace this case as I just bought it three days ago specifically for this purpose and I bought that specific case because it's specifications (on the website and box) state that it supports 4TB.
I'll post back ASAP.
Many thanks
Thank you very much for all the additional input!
I am away from that machine at the moment. I will be back within the next 4 hours then I will review all your comments and test the suggestions made.
It seems current recommendations are INTEL firmware and drivers, USB drivers and firmware on the Vantec casing itself. I'll put these to use this evening (South-African time) and report back. I will start with Vantec casing firmware.
noxcho: I really don't want to replace this case as I just bought it three days ago specifically for this purpose and I bought that specific case because it's specifications (on the website and box) state that it supports 4TB.
I'll post back ASAP.
Many thanks
INTEL firmware/drivers, yes .. but from the Vantec site. They productize them to match the interrupts and DMA addresses of the their particular implementation.
Completely agree with dlethe, use drivers from Vantec only. Best if you contact their team and clarify if firmware update/upgrade would fix the issue.
Replacement, if firmware upgrade does not help, I think you would have to replace it. Hardware could have problems, no insurance for hardware problems. Thus hardware vendors easily replace hardware components when you find some problem with them.
Replacement, if firmware upgrade does not help, I think you would have to replace it. Hardware could have problems, no insurance for hardware problems. Thus hardware vendors easily replace hardware components when you find some problem with them.
Intel bought Silicon Image now?
Looking at their list of chipsets it looks like Vantec use just about every manufacturer under the sun so you'll need the exact part mumber of the enclosure to identify the firmware properly.
ASKER
Experts,
We have a solution! It works now - I have 4TB available from my external RAID0 array.
The solution provided by "andyalder" worked. He suggested upgrading the external casing firmware and provided a link. See above.
The link provided was:
www.befok.net/2008/10/08/things-you-need-to-know-about-the-vantec-nexstar-mx-and-raid/comment-page-2/#comment-1293
Thank you all so much - a complete and speedy resolution.
I want to increase points to 500 - this was a complex issue for me.
Thanks again to everyone
We have a solution! It works now - I have 4TB available from my external RAID0 array.
The solution provided by "andyalder" worked. He suggested upgrading the external casing firmware and provided a link. See above.
The link provided was:
www.befok.net/2008/10/08/things-you-need-to-know-about-the-vantec-nexstar-mx-and-raid/comment-page-2/#comment-1293
Thank you all so much - a complete and speedy resolution.
I want to increase points to 500 - this was a complex issue for me.
Thanks again to everyone
ASKER
Many thanks to all
Read this article
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/jbod.htm