Backup server 2012R2

[Wubbalubbadub]

Afternoon,

 

I have recently purchased a new backup server.

 

Its a R710 with 8 drives @ 900GB each.

 

My idea is to raid all the drives in raid 5... which I have done & to install server 2012R2.

 

Now I am trying to create 2 partitions... I have a total of 5.8TB and when i start the windows server 2012r2 installation and create a partition of 120GB for the OS it then creates 4 partitions.. I get my 120gb partition, a 400mb partition and then the weird bit...

 

I get one 2.4 tb partition and another 3.4TB partition.

 

So I am really confused as to why this is happening..

 

All I want is all my drives in raid 5 with 2 partitions, one for data and the other for the OS...

 

Am i going about this the wrong way?

 

ANy help would be great..

 

Matt

[localzuk]

For that size of array, it would be inadvisable now-days, to use RAID 5 due to the likelihood of failure during array rebuild post disk failure.

 

Instead, I'd recommend using Windows Storage Spaces.

[Wubbalubbadub]

Its a 24 bay array. with only 8 disks at the moment..

[localzuk]

What model disks are they in it?

[Sagima]

It might be to do with the bios limit for the boot drive. so you get the odd sizes.

If you install 2012 in uefi, then shrink the boot partition to the size you want from windows and then crate the second partition from the remaining space you might get what you want. You will get a couple of extra small partitions to make the uefi thing work but you can ignore those.

Raid 5 at that size isn't ideal but I do it with my two backup servers as the I couldn't convince myself for the need of a more redundant raid.

[Wubbalubbadub]

What model disks are they in it?

 

900GB SAS 10K

[localzuk]

Real SAS or Nearline? I'm aiming to figure out the URE rate for the disks. If they're true SAS then you should be fine for rebuilds actually.

 

Those 2 partition sizes don't indicate a UEFI issue - as if it were, then you'd have partition max sizes of 2TB each.

 

Can you go into the server manager and delete those 2 partitions and create your own 5.6TB partition? It might just be Windows being odd.

[aking99]

I'd recommend Raid 0,1 or 10 over Raid 5 in every situation, the parity bit usage in Raid 5 isn't as good as the others.

Out of interest, why go for the all in one option rather than server + storage (SAN mounted as iscsi)?

[steveg]

Did you enable any legacy options on the server in order to get it to boot / see the drives?

 

I'd normally favour Raid 6 with that many drives, to increase the likelihood of a recovery in the event of a failure.

 

Steve

[synaesthesia]

Indeed, better off with a cheap and cheerful server (or an existing old one) with something like a Synology diskstation for a very cost effective backup solution. Certainly you need to be avoiding the use of RAID5 in this day and age!

[Wubbalubbadub]

Ok. So now my idea is the followingl

 

Raid 1 with 2 disks for the OS.

 

I am now trying to somehow get the raid controller to bring the other disks online...Non raided.. (Any ideas how?)

To then configure windows spaces.

 

The disks are real SAS

[chilbs]

To bring the disks online on a freenas server I have set the raid controller to have an individual raid 0 group per disk and then the software sees those as individual disks which are then configured in freenas as a raid group but could quite easily be individual disks. Edited August 1, 2014 by chilbs
grammar

[Wubbalubbadub]

To bring the disks online on a freenas server I have set the raid controller to have an individual raid 0 group per disk and then the software sees those as individual disks which are then configured in freenas as a raid group but could quite easily be individual disks.

 

You my friend have made my day!

 

Now to work on windows spaces!