[SOLVED] Installing a RAID 5 external storage

[dantastic]

I've just bought a 4 bay external storage which has hardware RAID 5, and put in 4x8TB HDD's. After plugging it in to my PC, I can see it in device manager, but in disk manager it's unallocated (22TB). The only option not greyed out is "New Simple Volume", but it says this can only be on one disk. Do I just ignore that (because the external RAID 5 is effectively making it 1 disk) and make a simple volume, or is there another way to set it up?
Also is there any way to check that it is really in RAID 5 and working properly from windows (the external storage came with minimal instructions).

 

[kanewolf]

I've just bought a 4 bay external storage which has hardware RAID 5, and put in 4x8TB HDD's. After plugging it in to my PC, I can see it in device manager, but in disk manager it's unallocated (22TB). The only option not greyed out is "New Simple Volume", but it says this can only be on one disk. Do I just ignore that (because the external RAID 5 is effectively making it 1 disk) and make a simple volume, or is there another way to set it up?
Also is there any way to check that it is really in RAID 5 and working properly from windows (the external storage came with minimal instructions).

Since you are seeing a 22TB "disk", I belive you create a simple volume. The external enclosure has hidden the RAID.

 

[dantastic]

Thank you that makes sense

 

[faalin]

Please be very careful with what you put on it. Raid 5 is not a backup solution, yes you can be ok loosing 1 drive without loosing any information but loosing 2 you lost everything. You also have to watch out for the enclosure its self going bad, since that hardware made the raid the drives may only work in that enclosure. You might be able to replace the enclosure with the exact same one but might run into issues with firmware versions.