Unable to create New Simple Volume of a 3.7 TB 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. (LSI 9211-8i with (4) 2 TB WD Red) 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 that it is all set up and running I can use the rest of the space. 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.



-Josh

 

[whs]

If you want to use more than 2.2GB, you have to convert the MBR disk to a GPT disk.

 

[FunkyWalker]

Thank you whs! I didn't know about the two different disk formats. Did a little looking into it and it looks like it is possible to convert with out starting over but it might be a little complicated. Would you recommend redoing my partition or trying to convert the volume? One place recommended AOMEI Partition Assistant and might give that a shot.

 

[whs]

Go by what MS says. I would hate for you to lose your stuff.

Change a Master Boot Record Disk into a GUID Partition Table Disk

And for imaging, look here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html?ltr=I

 

[gregrocker]

We see nothing but problems here with RAID. What did you hope to gain by using RAID? If you lose one HD you'll lose all your data, even often times on mirrored. It is a dated technology that offers no benefits except for those who work with huge files like video editing.

Convert MBR Disk to GPT Disk - Windows 7 Forums

Be sure to back up your data first as this is a destructive conversion.

 

[SIW2]

You should be fine to perform non destructive conversion with a third party tool like Aomei. That assumes it is a storage disk. Boot disk is more complicated. They do a great free imaging program as well.

Free Partition Manager Software

 

[FunkyWalker]

I'll be honest and didn't realize that they were dated, even when mirrored. I did it because I had all the drives that I was going to try and use for a home server as a learning experience that never worked out. So I thought that with this I could get a large volume that was safe and fairly fast. If they're really not worth it I suppose I would rather have all the space for all my raw picture files and sell the raid card.