Windows Server 2008 Disk / Partition size?

[waldronm2000]

Hi

Just installed my first WS2008 Standard Edition, on a Dell Poweredge R710 with hardware RAID (PERC H700). Got 6 x 1TB drives, configured RAID5 over 5 of them, with 1 as a hot spare, giving a logical disk size of just under 4TB.

As I'm intending to use Hyper-V to run an additional virtual server on this box, in the server install I created a 2,000,000MB (a little under 2TB) partition for the OS, so that I could use the other 2TB to create a partition to hold VHDs for the virtual server.

Got all drivers installed and ready to go. Went into Disk Management to create 2nd partition, and it'll only let me create a bit under 100GB, presumably taking me up to a 2TB limit. Disk management won't let me do anything with the space above 2TB. Also, won't let me convert the disk to dynamic (not that I really want to, but thought this might be a workaround).

My initial thought is that I need to rebuild the RAID as 2 separate 3-disk 2TB groups, but would prefer not to as I'd lose my hot spare in the process. Also, this means going through the install process again from scratch. Not a big deal, as I haven't done a huge amount with it yet, but another couple of hours gone!

Anyone know whether this is a limitation of Windows, or maybe the RAID controller? Any suggestions would be appreciated...

[waldronm2000]

Nobody? Oh well, guess I'll have to wipe it and start again!

[themightymrp]

Sorry I didn't see this thread sooner, I think you need to read this page:

How to Break the 2TB (2 TeraByte) File System Limit | CarltonBale.com

It's something to do with using a GUID partition table instead of an MBR table in order to break a 2Tb threshold limit.

[waldronm2000]

Thanks mightymrp.

I'm not sure if this is the same issue, as I'm happy to have 2TB partitions, I just want 2 of them on the same RAID array. Have wiped it and started again with 2 RAID5 arrays, so should be ok after another install.