Need help understanding my RAID configuration

[Gomboman]

I recently purchased a used HP Desktop PC from a friend for a decent price. It's not my dream PC but for the price I couldn't turn it down. http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=967061

The system that I inherited is setup with a 2 drive RAID configuration running Windows 7. I was under the impression that my new PC had two 500 GB drives since I can only see 455 GB in windows under my C: drive and 9.85 GB on my D: drive for the image. In the Intel Matrix Storage Console both volumes show up as 465 GB but in the ports menu the drives are listed at 698 GB.

I pulled off the case today and I actually have 2 750 GB drives (Seagate ). The previous owner pulled out the two 500 GB drives and replaced them with two 750 GB drives sometime this year.

The system was baselined a few weeks ago so I'm not sure why I can't see the full 750 GB capacity. I don't know enough about the various RAID systems so I thought someone here could help me understand this. I'm assuming either the RAID controller or the BIOS is limited to 500 GB.

To me, this setup doesn't make very much sense since I can only use 1/3 of my total hard drive capacity. I'm thinking I should get rid of the RAID setup and use both drives separately. Maybe I could setup a scratch disk on the second drive for Photoshop or just backup my data on the second drive.

Any suggestions for me would be appreciated.

[tim]

If it's set up for space you'd see a 1.5TB drive. Set up for data security you should see the full capacity of one drive, 750GB. It could be that the drives aren't properly partitioned. Go into control panel, system administration, and find the disk management console. Look at what it says, post a screenshot or something.

[Gomboman]

Here you go. Since this is an HP I'm assuming there is some type of proprietary controller or BIOS that is not compatible with larger drives. The PC is about 2 years old.

It came from the factory with this RAID system installed using the 2 500 GB drives. The previous owner could not get the system to recognize anything larger than 500 GB after he installed the 750's.

499747

[bcd01]

Raid 1 configuration (mirror) would be the size on the smallest drive. I suspect that your buddy may have replaced the drives one at a time and rebuilt from the remaining good drive. Then did the same for the second and that may explain why they are only formatted at 465MB. In order to maximuize the drives you need to re-partition both drives and then reformat. You need the drivers for the RAID controller to do that.

[Gomboman]

Raid 1 configuration (mirror) would be the size on the smallest drive. I suspect that your buddy may have replaced the drives one at a time and rebuilt from the remaining good drive. Then did the same for the second and that may explain why they are only formatted at 465MB. In order to maximuize the drives you need to re-partition both drives and then reformat. You need the drivers for the RAID controller to do that.

Thanks for the info. I appreciate it. The mother board on this system failed about a month ago so my friend had Fry's replace the mother board. They re-configured the system and re-formatted both 750 GB Drives. The tech told my friend that only 500 GB was available with the RAID controller. I'm not sure if he knew what he was doing.

Here are the specifications for the drives on my HP d5000t according to the manual:
__________________________________________________ ____
Hard Drive Must select one of the following options:

•2 x 500 GB drives in RAID 1 (500 GB usable data), 7200 rpm, SATA 3.0 Gb/sec
•640 GB (2 x 320) 7200 rpm RAID 0, SATA 3.0 Gb/sec
•1 TB (2 x 500) 7200 rpm RAID 0, SATA 3.0 Gb/sec
•500 GB 7200 rpm SATA 3.0 Gb/sec
•750 GB 7200 rpm SATA 3.0 Gb/sec
•1 TB 7200 rpm SATA 3.0 Gb/sec
•1.5 TB (2 x 750) 7200 rpm SATA 3.0 Gb/sec
__________________________________________________ _____

Here's the full spec sheet:

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=120&prodSeriesId=3750358&prodTypeId=12454&objectID=c01459309

[bcd01]

HP is limiting your choices, probably to make it easier for the typical consummer to setup. In this situation, I think I would select option 5 (750 GB 7200 rpm SATA 3.0 Gb/sec). It is not indicated as a mirror configuration, BUT honestly you don't need a mirrored drive. Raid 1 slows down your data writing since it has to write to both drives simultaneously. Raid 0 is faster but there is no protection if one drive fails, you lose it all.

May I suggest that you re-partition the drive to give yourself a full 750GB and set it up as your primary drive. Then using windows drive management to partition the second drive. Then just copy data over to that drive as needed for backup or you can set it up as a windows task to do a backup to that drive at night.

[Gomboman]

I was thinking the same thing. RAID1 for home use is a waste. I would rather have two separate drives and implement a decent backup system than deal with these limitations. I just hate the idea of re-installing all my software again. Thanks for your help.

[bcd01]

You don't have to reinstall the programs. I don't know what hard drives you got there, but some of the hard manufacturers like Western Digital and Segate/Maxtor have utilities that you can download from there site to reimage/repartition the second drive. In essence they allow for you to expand the drive size to take of the increased drive sixe. It may be usable in this case. If you can do this and everything works right, then reformat the old drive. Check the drive manufacturer's website for formatting utilities.

[tim]

Can't windows increase the size of a partition for you? If not there's probably an open source tool that can. They tend to be a bit harder to use though.

[toxic]

Just kill the RAID and set it up as two drives.

[Gomboman]

Just kill the RAID and set it up as two drives.

OK, I killed the RAID. Now I need to clean up the disks. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Here's what the drives look like now:

500350

[bcd01]

Do you want larger drives or can you live with multiple volmes?

If you not, do you have anything on disk 1 (drive L or Drive M)?

If not, for starters delete the partition and start all over again setting the new partition to a maximum size on disk 1.

If you cannot partition it to 750MB, you might need a bios update for the motherboard. The NTFS limit is 2 terabytes, so you are well within that.

Once that is done, we have to decide what to do with the HP 'Factory Image'. I recall HP allows you to create a one-time drive recovery image. If the guy who sold you the drive already did it, you need that image from him, if no, you need to make that image now. The HP documentation that came with the machine will have the instructions. The Factory Image allows for you to recover your drive to its orginal installation in case you need to.

See how far you can go and get back with us.

[Gomboman]

Do you want larger drives or can you live with multiple volumes?

If you not, do you have anything on disk 1 (drive L or Drive M)?

If not, for starters delete the partition and start all over again setting the new partition to a maximum size on disk 1.

If you cannot partition it to 750MB, you might need a bios update for the motherboard. The NTFS limit is 2 terabytes, so you are well within that.

Once that is done, we have to decide what to do with the HP 'Factory Image'. I recall HP allows you to create a one-time drive recovery image. If the guy who sold you the drive already did it, you need that image from him, if no, you need to make that image now. The HP documentation that came with the machine will have the instructions. The Factory Image allows for you to recover your drive to its original installation in case you need to.

See how far you can go and get back with us.

OK, getting closer. I got disk 1 setup now as one large 750 GB volume. I would like to do the same for Disk 0.

There is no data on volumes D and K (disk 0). Can I extend the partition on volume C to 750 Gb without losing any data? Kind of nervous since this is where my operating system resides.

500454

[Gomboman]

I did it. Thanks for all the help.

500458

[bcd01]

I no longer see the HP Factory Image. Has this been deleted? Did you get all the info off of the volume?

If so, delete those two volumes (D: and K: volumes). There is software (parition magic comes to mind) that make this easier and there is some freeware software that will do the trick, but I don't use them to often. Download Segate's MaxBlast5 at: http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=MaxBlast_5&vgnextoid=7add8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD . Follow the instructions and you should be okay.

[Gomboman]

I no longer see the HP Factory Image. Has this been deleted? Did you get all the info off of the volume?

If so, delete those two volumes (D: and K: volumes). There is software (parition magic comes to mind) that make this easier and there is some freeware software that will do the trick, but I don't use them to often. Download Segate's MaxBlast5 at: http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=MaxBlast_5&vgnextoid=7add8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD . Follow the instructions and you should be okay.

Yes, that's what I did. See the last file attachement. I did all this in the Disk Management application in Windows 7. No need for any other programs.