RAID Query: Mixing Disk Sizes

[talksr]

Hi there,

Just a quick question....

 

I have a RAID 6 Double Parity across 4 x 600gb drives.

I happen to have two 1.2tb drives which will also fit the server. I know I would need to rebuild the RAID but could I mix the 2 x 1.6tb drives with the 4 x 0.6TB drives? I would have a total storage capacity of 4 8TB to be put into the RAID.

 

Thanks in advance:)

[PotNoodleTech]

You can put the 1.2tb drives in but only 600GB will be used on each drive - so you may have 2 x 1.6 and 2 x 0.6 drives but your raid array will only have 4x0.6gb worth of usable storage.

[simpsonj]

I believe, though I stand to be corrected, that if you put in the 1.6tb drives with the 600gb drives, the RAID would only use 600gb of the 1.6tb drives, effectively 'wasting' 1tb per drive.

 

I suspect you would be better off creating a separate RAID for the 1.6TB disks.

[talksr]

Thanks both, that is really useful.