Help setting up raid 5 array

chainy · 26 Dec 2008 at 17:44

As title

Can anyone give me a step by step idiots guide to setting up a raid 5 array on my Asus P5Q Deluxe.

I have a Raptor as my system disc and want to raid 4x Samsung f1 1tb's that I use to store films, mp3's etc.

Ive built a few Pc's but never set-up raid before and have not got a clue where to start.

Do I need to start from scratch and wipe all the HDD's?

chainy · 27 Dec 2008 at 10:56

Anybody?

glitch · 27 Dec 2008 at 11:21

XP or Vista?

chainy · 27 Dec 2008 at 19:42

glitch said:
XP or Vista?

Vista

glitch · 28 Dec 2008 at 14:39

Have a read of this and see if it answers your questions. Admittedly it's for the P5B Deluxe but the theory is sound and it got me through setting up my RAID set on my P5Q Deluxe so it should do the same for you.

Shout if you need help though.

chainy · 8 Jan 2009 at 23:13

glitch said:
Have a read of this and see if it answers your questions. Admittedly it's for the P5B Deluxe but the theory is sound and it got me through setting up my RAID set on my P5Q Deluxe so it should do the same for you.

Shout if you need help though.

I need helppppppp!

Everything seemed to be going fine. Created the raid 5 array with the 4x1TB Samsung F1 drives and my Raptor as the system disc. The problem im getting now is Disk Management is detecting my 4TB RAID 5 as (2.73TB usable) which is ok (But its showing as 2048GB with 746.54GB unallocated). When you try and create the simple volume it will only let you allocate 2048GB. Surely this cant be right.

Zarf · 9 Jan 2009 at 01:40

2048GB is the largest MBR partition size, you need to use GPT instead.

1. Right-click Computer in the Start Menu and then select Manage.
2. Select Disk Management in the left column.
3. Right-click the MBR drive you want to convert to GPT and then click Convert to GPT Disk.

Note: If the drive isn’t empty or it contains partitions you can’t convert it to GPT.

GPT lets you have partitions up to 18 Million TB big, so plenty of room

chainy · 9 Jan 2009 at 07:07

Zarf said:
2048GB is the largest MBR partition size, you need to use GPT instead.

GPT lets you have partitions up to 18 Million TB big, so plenty of room

I dont seem to get the option in disk managemnt and right clicking the drive to alter it to GPT

The drives are empty and have no partitions apart from how choosing MBR has split them.

rpstewart · 9 Jan 2009 at 10:10

Normally you get asked whether you want to initialise the disk as GPT or MBR when disk management first detects it. It might be worth dropping and recreating the array and seeing if DM will pick it up again.

chainy · 9 Jan 2009 at 18:06

rpstewart said:
Normally you get asked whether you want to initialise the disk as GPT or MBR when disk management first detects it. It might be worth dropping and recreating the array and seeing if DM will pick it up again.

This done the trick. All working fine now. Not so sure I should have opted for the normal format with brand new HDD's, its taking agesssssssss. should have done the quick format.

Thanks for all the help guys.

PistolPete · 9 Jan 2009 at 18:19

I'd personally do a full format first time, then alternate quick and fulls after that. I only generally format once a year unless I'm unlucky.