RAID Setup

[Jawloms]

Hi all,

 

I currently have an HP DL360 Gen 9 with 4x 900GB drives in it. I've just purchased 4x 1.2TB drives. Any tips on the best way to RAID? I'd like to RAID10 it, but don't want it to use them all as 900GB drives as that is the lower capacity. Will it realise there are four of each and so create a stripe using 2x 900GB and 2x 1.2TB, then mirror them on to the others?

 

Thank you

 

Stuart

[mukz]

Hi Stuart,

 

What do you want to achieve with the drives is the question? Is it for file storage? Is it for SQL?

[Jawloms]

It will be a Hyper-V host, hosting file servers, and a couple of other servers which don't require high-speed stuff.

[pantscat]

You can do what you want with the HP RAID - you'd effectively have two RAID 10 volumes, one using 4 of the 900GB disks, and the other with the 1.2TB disks.

 

Is that what you want to do?

[Jawloms]

So I can't just have one RAID10 volume using all eight? It's not "intelligent" enough to be able to do that?

[mukz]

So I can't just have one RAID10 volume using all eight? It's not "intelligent" enough to be able to do that?

 

Nothing stopping you do that.

I do that on our Dell MD3200, HOWEVER You will be limited to the usable data area on each drive which will be equivalent to the capacity of the smallest drive -- 900 GB in this case.

[Jawloms]

Yeah, that was my fear from my original post. I was hoping it might use 2x 900GB and 2x 1.2TB drives to make a volume, and then mirror that on to the remaining 2x 900GB and 2x 1.2TB drives. Guess not. Thanks.

[mukz]

Yeah, that was my fear from my original post. I was hoping it might use 2x 900GB and 2x 1.2TB drives to make a volume, and then mirror that on to the remaining 2x 900GB and 2x 1.2TB drives. Guess not. Thanks.

 

Yup Unfortunately not that smart.

 

I would prefer to keep the raids separate for storage on a raid6 especially if it is just file storage. and use the bigger drives for HyperV Machine Storage. but that is just me.

 

I would also have a look into Windows Storage Spaces. Might be better suited for you.

Edited August 11, 2016 by mukz