How to best set up a 3 disk 6TB Raid 5 with controller in Win7 64bit

[sdsmall]

I have a Dell Precision T7500 with a controller and 3 2 TB HD. Dell delivered it with the 3 drives listed separately. I wanted a 200g C drive for the programs, OS and recovery, and the rest was supposed to be a single drive. How do I get there from here? Dell support referred me to the partition magic software but it does not appear able to resolve my specific needs. If I reformat I have to reinstall all the software, and that would be a problem of me.

 

[Dereck47]

A minimum of 3 drives is required for a RAID-5 array. So you have 2 options at this point:

1.) Create a RAID-5 array with your existing 3 drives. Creating the array will delete all data on all drives in the array and you will have to do a fresh install of your O/S and programs.
Your array's total capacity will be 4TB (before formatting). After installing your O/S, install Partition Magic and create a 2nd D: partition. Then resize your C: partition to 200GB and resize your D: partition to the remaining maximum size.

2.) Purchase another 2 TB drive from Dell. You will then have 1 2TB drive as your O/S and you will have 3 drives to create a RAID-5 array.

 

[popatim]

I'd be on the phone telling Dell to come get it and bring what I ordered.

 

[Dereck47]

I'd be on the phone telling Dell to come get it and bring what I ordered.

😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Best answer!