It's a GPT volume. Yeah, I understand I'm running a risk but I just don't see any other consumer-level method of reliably backing up multiple TB of data without doing something like mirrored RAID 5 arrays.
What I'm storing is media (movies, TV shows, music, photos) so its not like it's mission critical data, although it would be a real bummer if I lost it. --------------------------- Brian Weeden Technical Consultant Secure World Foundation <http://www.secureworldfoundtion.org> +1 (514) 466-2756 Canada +1 (202) 683-8534 US On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 8:20 PM, Robert Martin Jr. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > Thats a very difficult question. I've had a 2TB raid setup fail on a > ReadyNAS NV+ and all the drives were apparently fine despite losing all the > data. In fact all the drives are in use in other boxes now. I was not able > to recover any of the files from the NAS using other linux boxes and > utilities, but thankfully I keep hard copies of most of my stuff. I've had > onboard raid arrays die or get corrupted on a couple occasions. Possibly > because of this I tend to not trust that my data is safe on anything but a > hard copy. Back to your question my feeling is that the larger array is more > convenient for you or I to use, but in my feeling risks your data more > because any machine other than what you created it on may have a problem > reading it. Or in worse case scenario other systems may try to "Fix" the > structure and wipe out everything. > > lopaka > > --- On Thu, 10/30/08, Brian Weeden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Brian Weeden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [H] Questions about volumes greater than 2TB on a RAID array > To: "hwg" <hardware@hardwaregroup.com> > Date: Thursday, October 30, 2008, 4:58 PM > > 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/Over2TB_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 >
