Is the volume GPT or MBR? In Disk Management, right click on the disk itself, and go to Volumes. You should see "Partition Style: ..."
This should be GPT for >2TB support. Everything else--Basic, Simple, NTFS--is fine. Most utilities aren't presently smart enough to handle GPT disks. All editions of Vista support them though...as do Server 2003 SP1 and later, and XP 64-bit. With regard to RAID6...I run it on my array of (12) 500GB drives on Areca ARC-1230. Yes, there is an increased risk of failure as drive sizes increase due to increased rebuild times. You can mitigate the risk somewhat by buying drives from different batches (different times or different retailers), and also make sure that you've set your rebuild priority to maximum. With 4 drives, I wouldn't personally worry about it as much as say, 12 drives. For me, when I'm over 8-10 spindles, I want double redundancy. Greg > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:hardware- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Weeden > Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 6:59 PM > To: hwg > Subject: [H] Questions about volumes greater than 2TB on a RAID array > > As I've discussed on here before, I'm running a RAID 5 array on my > HTPC. > Just last week I added a 4th 1 TB drive to bring the total usable space > to > just under 3 TB. But I'm quickly venturing into unknown territory and > I > wanted to see if there was anything I should be on the lookout for from > those of you who have had arrays that big before. > > Right now I have it as one single 3 TB volume mounted under windows > (32-bit > Vista to be exact). followed the directions in the Areca manual (as > well > as located > here<ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw/RaidCards/Documents/Manual_Spec/Software/Ov > er2TB_080612.zip>) > for enabling greater than 2TB access when I originally built the array. > I > used the LBA64 method. But I noticed when I went to install Acronis > Disk > Manager it gave me the following warning: > > "Acronis Disk Director Suite has detected unsupported hard disk drives. > Acronis Disk Director Suite does not support Windows Dynamic Disks, > EZ-Drives, etc.Acronis Disk Director Suite will not be able to access > these > hard disk drives" > > When I brought it up it saw all the drives and partitions on the system > except for the 3 TB RAID array. I was able to see the array under the > Disk > Management snap-in under Administrator Tools and used that to expand it > from > 2 TB to 2.8 TB when I added the new drive. It lists it as a "basic, > simple, > NTFS, primary partition". > > My concern is that I've done something which means I will only be able > to > access this array when it's attached to a Windows machine. Could that > be > true? Are there other "gotchas" I should be on the lookout for? > > Also, I've been reading some articles and papers lately about concerns > on > RAID 5 arrays, specifically that when a single drive fails they take so > long > to rebuild that there's a good chance another drive will fail before > the > rebuild is complete, meaning you lose everything. I'm considering > switching > it to RAID 6 which is tolerate to 2 failures. Any thoughts on that? > Right > now I have no other backup for the data outside of the array. > > --------------------------- > Brian Weeden > Technical Consultant > Secure World Foundation <http://www.secureworldfoundtion.org> > +1 (514) 466-2756 Canada > +1 (202) 683-8534 US
