Unusable Space on a RAID Disk

[FUnkyWalker]

I just recently did a Windows 7 re install so I would have a clean slate when using a new raid setup. I am new to RAID's but everything seams to be working fine. I used 4, 2 TB WD Reds in a RAID 10 and got the expected 3.7 TB of space. I run my OS on a small 120 GB SSD and put all my user accounts on a different drive as shown here.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/124198-user-profiles-create-move-during-windows-7-installation.html

So to get back to the problem at hand, when I went to create a new simple volume initially to do this it would only allow me to put 2048 GB in a volume. Not a big deal because I though that I would be able to set up a new simple with the rest of it later. The problem that I'm wondering about is that now when I am in disk management and right click on the unallocated space everything is grayed out except for Properties and Help.

I'm not sure what to do about this . Although I don't need the s[ace right now I don't like the idea of 1.5 TB sitting there unusable. If I'm going to do something about this I would rather do it now than later.

I was going to attach a screen shot of this but wasn't sure how. Any help or thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

-Josh

 

[i7Baby]

What OS you using?

 

[FUnkyWalker]

What OS you using?

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

 

[i7Baby]

So - you set up raid and went to initialize it and it only made 2tb instead of the expected 4?

Sure you've set it up right? They all identical drives? How have you set it up?

 

[FUnkyWalker]

So - you set up raid and went to initialize it and it only made 2tb instead of the expected 4?

Sure you've set it up right? They all identical drives? How have you set it up?

I am using 4 of the same drives. 2 TB Western Digital Red drives.

I can't say I'm 100% positive that I did it right because I am new to using RAID cards but everything in the RAID bios worked as I would have expected and when it was done creating the volume there was approximately 3.7 TB of unallocated space. So when I went to make a new simple volume of that it only would let me go as big as 2 TB even though the total volume size was 3.7 TB.

So it looks like all the space is there but I can't use it.

Initially I was wondering if Windows 7 would only allow me to have up to 2 TB of space per partition and though I could use it later.



http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i442/FunkyWalker101/Unallocatedspace_zps29624f7d.png

 

[i7Baby]

To extend a basic volume using the Windows interface In Disk Manager, right-click the basic volume you want to extend.
Click Extend Volume….
Follow the instructions on your screen.

 

[tsnor]

perhaps this: Understanding the 2 TB Limit in Windows Storage ? http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2010/02/18/understanding-the-2-tb-limit-in-windows-storage.aspx

I used GPT (Guid Partition Table) vs. MBR for my large (6TB) raid 5 array, and it is seen as one drive with one partition.

Convert MBR to GPT Disk with Diskpart by Deleting All Volumes : http://www.disk-partition.com/blog/3tb-external-hard-drive-only-showing-2tb-in-disk-management/ (you need to read 1/2 way down).

p.s. very cool using RAID 10. Hope that is stable. Good idea to use Raid Edition disks -- less likely to fall out of raid array wiht long running error operations. I use raid 0 (stripe, no mirror) via Intel rst on my gaming system and will drop that with my next rebuild. My 6TB raid 5 array (4 drives X 2TB) is esata attached using an external raid controller. I have no experience at all with windows7 native disk mirroring. So google a bit before following the instructions for GPT conversion when running win7 raid.

 

[i7Baby]

GPT is the default. Is this what you used?

 

[FUnkyWalker]

I believe that this is what was used because I didn't choose anything. I was looking into it and it makes sense to me because I most likely used the default and it would explain the size limit.

 

[FUnkyWalker]

perhaps this: Understanding the 2 TB Limit in Windows Storage ? http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2010/02/18/understanding-the-2-tb-limit-in-windows-storage.aspx

I used GPT (Guid Partition Table) vs. MBR for my large (6TB) raid 5 array, and it is seen as one drive with one partition.

Convert MBR to GPT Disk with Diskpart by Deleting All Volumes : http://www.disk-partition.com/blog/3tb-external-hard-drive-only-showing-2tb-in-disk-management/ (you need to read 1/2 way down).

p.s. very cool using RAID 10. Hope that is stable. Good idea to use Raid Edition disks -- less likely to fall out of raid array wiht long running error operations. I use raid 0 (stripe, no mirror) via Intel rst on my gaming system and will drop that with my next rebuild. My 6TB raid 5 array (4 drives X 2TB) is esata attached using an external raid controller. I have no experience at all with windows7 native disk mirroring. So google a bit before following the instructions for GPT conversion when running win7 raid.

Thanks for the info! Still looking into how to do the conversion. If it ends up failing I can always start over. So it's not like I would harm anything because I'm already backed up.

I hope the drives hold up and they should.