Shrinking C Partition

[talksr]

Is anyone else having bother trying to shrink the C partition in 2019 Server?

 

Mine had a 32ish terabyte C partition. Obviously this is not suitable and I want to make a D drive out of most of that space.

I was trying to shrink C down to 1gb and then realised that on the MS site, the minimum is 32gb. Tried that, then realised that you need to add an additional 4gb if you have the GUI which I do.

 

I keep getting errors. Not really sure what the issue is now as I am giving it the recommended size it is asking for. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

 

Unless my calculations are wrong....

3912gb=3912000mb

36gb=36000mb

3912000-36000=3,876,000 - this is the size I need to shrink C by.

 

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Steve21]

I mean I'd assume it's adding spaces where they aren't wanted desired=10 etc

 

Might be worth a quick try before going forwards too far looking into it

 

Steve

[Steve21]

Actually I'd say your calculation is wrong too, if you're shrinking your C volume and it's 3.1TB, you're using 3.9TB as the drive size in your calc

[3s-gtech]

Windows built in defrag is not really ideal for this. When presented with a large partition, Windows tends to scattergun across the space - beginning to end - and built-in defragging just moves these blocks together in clumps.

 

I’ve had to use third-party defrag utilities to actually move the data from the end of the volume to allow shrinking.

[Domino]

there's also the paging file to consider into the required space..

 

why not try reducing it by 2TB to begin with, you can always go down further after?

[Michael]

I suspect this has something to do with RAID arrays and assisted setup, for example on Dell and HP servers.

 

For example I'd expect RAID1 for the OS and RAID6 or better for data volumes.

[talksr]

Actually I'd say your calculation is wrong too, if you're shrinking your C volume and it's 3.1TB, you're using 3.9TB as the drive size in your calc

 

there's also the paging file to consider into the required space..

 

why not try reducing it by 2TB to begin with, you can always go down further after?

 

I suspect this has something to do with RAID arrays and assisted setup, for example on Dell and HP servers.

 

For example I'd expect RAID1 for the OS and RAID6 or better for data volumes.

 

 

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Micheal is quite right, it must be to do with the assisted setup. This is one big storage server, so the whole point of it is to use as much possible raided space for the storage on the D drive.

 

 

As Domino has mentioned about paging file, I tried to set it to 2 tb, but it was still not happy with that.

I currently have 1705gb allocated but 2206.46gb allocated to C.

 

If I do as you mentioned steve and do shrink desired by 10, it will successfully shrink the volume by 10mb so it is able to shrink, but there seems to be a limit on how much.

[talksr]

I have managed to get the C partition down to 1.91TB however, this leaves me with just under 2tb available. This is not going to be enough as on our old storage server, we are currently using 2.5tb of 5tb.

It looks like I need to make the raid bigger. I am running a RAID (1+0) RAID 10.

The total usable space was 7.6tb but over the RAID 10, it gave 3.8TB of usable space.

I only have 4 spare slots in the server.

 

What should I do? Put an older version of Server on that doesn't need terabytes worth of C drive space? Or buy some much larger drives to fill the remaining four slots?

[talksr]

If anyone could give me some advice, would really appreciate it. HP are not interested saying it is a software issue so they won't offer me any support on this.

[3s-gtech]

Can you just rebuild it from scratch, allocating something like 120GB to C: during install? Server 2019 certainly doesn't need masses of space, unless you start putting chunky SQL apps etc in C:.

[Michael]

So from experience the last HP Gen 10 server I configured, I set the arrays to RAID1 and RAID6.

 

Using the Assisted Setup I then select the RAID1 volume and install the OS as normal. As far as I could make out, there was no facility to specify partition sizes, but this may have now changed with later/newer firmware.

 

Upon entering the OS, you can then create the required volumes by splitting the RAID6 array up, or as one large volume as required.

 

Windows Server 2019 doesn't require terabytes of space to install. Probably the absolute minimum would be 100GB. Same with Windows Server 2016.

[Michael]

Re-reading your post, if you have 4 x available slots, I'd buy 2 x smaller capacity drives - say 300GB SAS for example. Configure this as RAID1.

 

Then configure the remaining/existing drives as RAID10 or RAID6 as required.

 

Then as I wrote above, install the OS on RAID1 using Assisted Setup and configure your volumes within the OS thereafter on the RAID10 or RAID6 array.

[talksr]

Thanks everyone. I believe I already have two smaller drives, so I could do these as a RAID 1, but I need to physically go in and take a look so will see if I can do that tomorrow.

 

The automated setup was problematic when I set this server up. It wouldn't recognise server 2019 and took some hours before I could get it to accept the usb drive with the OS on.

 

I have checked my records and this is what it has:

6 x 1tb

6 x 2tb

2 x 600gb

 

So maybe RAID 1 for the 2 x 600 and then RAID 10 for the remainder.

 

I am just thinking, with four slots going spare, and I am assuming once a RAID 10 is done, you can't add to it...would this be the time to order four more high capacity drives and fill this server up and then go in and re-RAID and re-install OS?

 

 

Will update you all as I progress. Really appreciate the suggestions.

[Michael]

I suspect the 2 x 600GB were meant for the OS which is OK too.

 

Not quite sure why you have 6 x 1TB and 6 x 2TB drives. If you require one huge RAID10 volume, you'd be better off with 12 x 1TB or 2TB for example.

 

You no doubt already know, but regardless of RAID type, drives need to be the same capacity/speed. With RAID6 and RAID10 you can add more drives as required, but with this configuration you can only have -

 

1 x RAID1 (600GB's)

1 x RAID10 (1TB's)

1 x RAID10 (2TB's)

[talksr]

I suspect the 2 x 600GB were meant for the OS which is OK too.

 

Not quite sure why you have 6 x 1TB and 6 x 2TB drives. If you require one huge RAID10 volume, you'd be better off with 12 x 1TB or 2TB for example.

 

You no doubt already know, but regardless of RAID type, drives need to be the same capacity/speed. With RAID6 and RAID10 you can add more drives as required, but with this configuration you can only have -

 

1 x RAID1 (600GB's)

1 x RAID10 (1TB's)

1 x RAID10 (2TB's)

 

Yes, I think they were. My bad on missing that.

Are you sure about only being able to use the 1TBs in one RAID 10 and the 2TBs in another RAID 10?

They all seem to be in the same RAID 10 at the moment...

 

[Michael]

If you run your drives through a RAID calculator (they're really useful) it comes out as follows -

 

12 x 1TB in RAID10 = 5.5TB of usable space.

 

12 x 2TB in RAID10 = 10.9TB of usable space.

 

This essentially means you're losing 5.5TB of space and the RAID array won't see the full 2TB due to 1TB drives being part of the same array.

 

Unless HP have somehow introduced a new RAID model, it's always been the case that the smallest drive capacity takes priority.

[3s-gtech]

This is why Storage Spaces may be the solution you want.

[talksr]

If you run your drives through a RAID calculator (they're really useful) it comes out as follows -

 

12 x 1TB in RAID10 = 5.5TB of usable space.

 

12 x 2TB in RAID10 = 10.9TB of usable space.

 

This essentially means you're losing 5.5TB of space and the RAID array won't see the full 2TB due to 1TB drives being part of the same array.

 

Unless HP have somehow introduced a new RAID model, it's always been the case that the smallest drive capacity takes priority.

 

Thank you. Makes sense. I asked HP for some clarification not long after your post.

 

If they agree that we will end up loosing space, I will replace all of the 1tb drives with 2tbs.

We have two vacant slots left, so I will also populate those with 2tb making...

8x new 2tb drives + 6 current 2tb drives + 2 x 600gb (mirror drives) for OS.

[Michael]

So overall you'd have 12.7TB usable on RAID10 thereafter, but you can then split these into volumes within the OS.

[talksr]

So overall you'd have 12.7TB usable on RAID10 thereafter, but you can then split these into volumes within the OS.

 

Yes, that is what I got with the very helpfully suggested RAID calculator. At least it is future-proofed that way. I can't imagine we would ever need to upgrade the storage for the life of this system.

It would also mean it would be useful for onsite backups.

[Michael]

Yes, that is what I got with the very helpfully suggested RAID calculator. At least it is future-proofed that way. I can't imagine we would ever need to upgrade the storage for the life of this system.

It would also mean it would be useful for onsite backups.

 

Famous last words 10 years from now 12TB won't necessarily be considered massive anymore!

[talksr]

Famous last words 10 years from now 12TB won't necessarily be considered massive anymore!

 

I hope I won't be working here in 10 years!

HP have clarified that the RAID will take the smallest size if there are different sized disks.

 

I am going to proceed and get 8 x 2tb drives, I am then going to remove the 2 x 600gb drives and use 2 of the 1tb drives for the OS creating two seperate logical drives:

1 for the OS which can be set to mirror

1 for the storage space which can be RAID 10.

 

Thanks for all of your help guys. Will keep you posted.

[talksr]

Hi everyone, having a bit of an issue. When I deleted the old RAID over a week ago, it set the old drives to be erased. I have come back in today and most are done but there are 6 x 1tb still not erased fully. They are at about 91%.

 

I really can't wait any longer to install the new ones. Does anyone know if it is possible to plug these drives into a standard SATA USB connector and format them from a Windows computer? Have never known it take so long.

The current drives are HP 10K SAS 1TB 870794 drives. Unfortunately, once I pouplate the server with the new drives, there will be no more vacant slots for me to be able to format them using the RAID configurator after I have put in the new ones. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I only have the day today so was hoping to insert the new 2tb drives and proceed with getting the new RAID configured and Server 2019 back on the server.

[Michael]

I'm not sure what you mean by setting the drives to be erased? Destroying the array will destroy any data.

[talksr]

I'm not sure what you mean by setting the drives to be erased? Destroying the array will destroy any data.

 

Well when I deleted the RAID, it gave me the option to erase the drives. However, that was over one week ago and six of the fourteen drives are still being erased with a progress of 91%. I just don't think I can hang on much longer. However it is erasing them, it seems to be very thorough. Just don't want to ruin the old drives if I turn off the power. And was wondering if I can do it another way with a windows PC myself?