RAID hardware setup and future expansion

[Lee Lemon]

Utilizing an LSI MegaRAID SAS 9271-8i to currently run three 4TB(3.639TB) hard drives in a RAID5 configuration (drives are noted on the card's list of compatible drives). However, when creating the virtual drive in the management software, the total drive size reads as 7.276TB. Is this normal or did I miss a configuration somewhere?

Also, how would one add more drives to expand the size of the RAID5 without having to destroy the data?

 

[kanewolf]

That would be reasonable in a RAID5 configuration. One entire disk is use to store recovery data so that if a single drive fails the other two can continue.

I haven't looked at the manual for that controller. You may not be able to grow your RAID volume.