Need help Windows Server 2003 partitions

Sooo here's my dilema ... I've got a new server that I need to get up and running and I have 5 x 1TB drives that are going into a RAID5 Array. I set up a 30gb partition on the array and installed windows on that partition. Everything went smooth and it's up and going.

When I went to partition the rest of the array to use it as a single storage drive .... there's only 2TB of usable space, the rest shows up as unpartitioned space and I can't do anything with it. Oh yeah ... crap ... MBR partitions don't like anything > 2TB. Now what?

For anyone that knows about RAID arrays and partitioning tables, my questions are:

Is it possible to install an OS (windows server 2003:rc2) into a GPT partitioned array?

Is there anyway to convert/reconfigure an existing array with an existing MBR partition to allow windows to use >2TB?

I'm not sure what to do here ... I was thinking about using a 1TB disk for the OS (MBR partition) and then creating a 4GB raid5 array w/ a GPT partition for storage, but 1TB for the system drive is a huge waste and I'd rather not do that.

Anyone?

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Comments

dynamik

Is this hardware or software RAID?

You shouldn't put the OS on RAID5 anyway. Get a couple of small drives and mirror them.

Is there a reason you can't just use multiple partitions?

And remember, you're going to lose one drive worth of available space with RAID 5 (i.e. 4x1TB = 3TB)

roswald

It's an HP Proliant 350 server running Hardware RAID ... and it's for a project that I didn't engineer - I just have to make it work. Ideally I'd have a pair of nice little 30GB drives in RAID1 for the OS and a 5TB(4TB usable) RAID5 array for storage, but that's not what I have to work with.

Can you have different partition types (MBR & GPT) on the same array? I'm not really very knowledgeable about this stuff other than what I've googled today.

Basically I have 5 x 1TB drives and I need to use as much of that as possible for storage, while running Server2k3 as the OS either on a partition or a lone drive.

tiersten

GPT FAQ. No to mixing.

Don't forget that hard disk manufacturers are lying scum and claim that 1000 bytes = 1KB. You'll only get about 930GB out of each drive before formatting.

TechJunky

Yes, you can have different MBR's on the same array types as long as the raid array is Hardware Raid.

What are you trying to acomplish with multiple MBR's? The MBR just tells what OS to load etc, so in essence you could have multiple MBR's but you may not be able to utilize them at the same time.

Can you expand on why you are needing multiple MBR's on an array?

roswald

TechJunky wrote:

What are you trying to acomplish with multiple MBR's? The MBR just tells what OS to load etc, so in essence you could have multiple MBR's but you may not be able to utilize them at the same time.

Can you expand on why you are needing multiple MBR's on an array?

Windows can't see primary MBR partitions > 2TB. I need to be able to have an array (or 2 or more partitions) that are >2TB, which is accomplished with GPT partitions from what I understand.

If I can't mix the partitions, is it possible to create and install an OS on a GPT partition? If so, how do I partition my array as GPT rather than MBR?

dynamik

Ugh. Then mirror two and use the other three for RAID-5. That's going to be the best mix of performance and drive space.

If you need all your space to be contiguous, you could create a small partition for the OS and a larger one for data on the mirrored array, and then create one partition on the RAID-5 array. Convert the data partition from the mirrored array and the RAID-5 array to dynamic disks and span them together. That would give you one contiguous space between 2.5-3TB, and it would be one of the most all around ghetto setups I've ever seen.

Edit: Does your HW RAID allow you to create larger than 2TB and Windows just doesn't see them, or can you not even create over 2TB? I have a couple of controllers that won't let you do beyond 2TB, and it has nothing to do with Windows.

Ahriakin

Software spanning between a Raid 1 and 5 array will lead to redundancy nightmares, not to mention mismatched performance depending on where file clusters are physically stored. A similar solution that would at least separate the drives logically might be using the same setup (1 mirror, one raid5) but mounting the Raid5 partition as a folder inside the primary partition instead of granting it it's own drive letter, though I don't like that solution too much either it would at least let you (and the OS) know that anything inside FolderX is in fact on the raid5 array.

roswald

dynamik wrote:

Edit: Does your HW RAID allow you to create larger than 2TB and Windows just doesn't see them, or can you not even create over 2TB?

I initially created a 4TB array with a 30Gig partition .. installed the OS on the 30gig partition and Windows sees all the space as unpartitioned. However in disk management, it shows the unpartitioned space as a 2TB chunk and a 1.7TB chunk. I can only do anything with the 2TB chunk - the other space won't let me touch it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the little bit of research I've done, the only way to get a drive/array larger than 2TB is to use a GPT partition.

Maybe I should word my problem differently - I've got 5 x 1TB drives and a hardware raid controller. The server is the head end for a CCTV system, so the primary concern is storage space with little need for mirrored redundancy on the system drive. The space doesn't necessarily need to be contiguous but needs high integrity. I was hoping there's a simple solution to just make a 4TB raid5 array using two GPT partitions (~30gig/~370gig), then install W2k3 on the smaller one.

Is my best option going to be to use one of the 1TB drives as the system drive, then create a raid5 array with the other 4 for ~3TB of high-availability usable storage?

macdude

Roswald,

Are you Running SP1? If not you need to update your server to SP1 or SP2 and that should take care of the issue.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/LUN_SP1.mspx

roswald

It's a brand new HP running Win Server 2k3 R2.

A quote from that page says:

Note: Disk devices with more than 2 TB of disk space must be converted to GPT format for all of the disk space to be usable. If the device uses MBR format, the disk space beyond 2 TB will be unusable.

Basically - My problem is that I'd need to install the OS on a GPT partition, and it seems like that may be impossible. I think I'll just split up the array and use a 1TB system drive with a MBR partition, and a 4TB (3usable) RAID5 array with a GPT partition.

dynamik

Isn't this system important? Why wouldn't you want redundancy on the system drive?

What kind of performance do you need for recording video? RAID-5 takes a significant performance hit when writing, which is why you don't want to put an OS that does things like paging on it. Have you thought about RAID-10? You could use four drives in that and use the fifth as a hot spare, if your system supports all that.

Ahriakin, yes the mirror/RAID-5 span was a joke, thanks for the clarification

HeroPsycho

Ahriakin wrote:

Software spanning between a Raid 1 and 5 array will lead to redundancy nightmares, not to mention mismatched performance depending on where file clusters are physically stored. A similar solution that would at least separate the drives logically might be using the same setup (1 mirror, one raid5) but mounting the Raid5 partition as a folder inside the primary partition instead of granting it it's own drive letter, though I don't like that solution too much either it would at least let you (and the OS) know that anything inside FolderX is in fact on the raid5 array.

Agreed.

astorrs

You have 6 slots in that ProLiant 350, to me the only acceptable solution is to buy another disk. 2xRAID1 for the system, 4xRAID5 for the video. If you can, try to return the 1TB and buy a couple of 250GB drives - costs should be almost a wash. If not, eat the cost on the additional 1TB drive and have a good nights sleep knowing your O/S disk is mirrored.

My 2¢.

roswald

Thanks astorrs,

I think I'm going to try to return one of the drives and get 2 smaller ones. I don't think the customer is going to like waiting another week or so for his system to be up and running, but it's the most sensible option that I have.

I just wish some thought was put into the system other than, "Hmmm we need a lot of storage ... let's get some big drives ... how bout 5 x1TB - sounds good, order it." Then I get stuck with trying to make it work after the cobbled engineering.