RAID 5

boyles23

We have a adaptec raid controller in our Windows 2003 SBS and it has 4 serial drives at 250 gb each, we use three for array and one for hotspare. In the Adaptec storage manager it shows that we are using 232 gb for storage, but windows shows only 3gb available space, and an unpartitioned space of around 434 gb. Is this normal or should windows show the 232 gb capacity also. I was wondering if we needed to create a new volume on unpartitioned space and then expand raid to take it in? Is that a possibility without losing data? This is my first real experience with RAID.

Thanks.

sprkymrk

I think that the Adaptec Storage Manager is showing you the full disk size of the logical disk (the 3 physical disks that make up the single logical disk that Windows sees) while Windows is showing you the partition on what it thinks is a single physical disk. So I believe you are correct that you need to create a new partition or expand the existing one. I am not certain you will be able to expand the existing partition due to basic/dynamic disk issues on the system drive.

boyles23

I thought I could expand it, I am gonna do more research and see what I can do. Thanks for your response.