server 2008 - disk management issue

Discussion:

(too old to reply)

p***@community.nospam

2008-09-18 18:38:12 UTC

Hi all,

I have a Dell PE 2950 server with a single hardware Raid 5 volume (Basic
Disk 0) with 6 drives and a total size of 4655.00 GB. It has 2 partitions:

39MB Dell Utilities Partition
200GB System Boot Partition - C:\

For some reason Disk Management is showing the remaining unallocated space
in 2 chunks instead of 1.So it shows the following:

1847.96GB Unallocated
2607.00 GB Unallocated

Why is that? I want to create 1 big partition (D:\) with all the remaining
unallocated space and I cannot do that now.

TIA!

unknown

2008-09-18 21:11:08 UTC

Permalink

Hello ***@community.nospam,

See last entry from Morgan Che:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/winserverfiles/thread/9e8ef71f-02c4-402c-b9b8-16d32b6cb8a2/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edwin vMierlo [MVP] 7/10/2008 2:50 AM PST

Max Partition on a MBR disk is 2TB
Max Partition on a GPT disk is about 8589934592 TB (in theory) there are
some limitations.... which effectively will bring this to about 18 ExaByte

Please note a partition is on a single phisical disk.

Once you start using dynamic disks, you can actually create NTFS Volumes
much larger than a single partions....

In theory, the maximum NTFS volume size is 2 ^ 32 clusters. However, even if
there were hardware available to supply a logical volume of that capacity,
there are other limitations to the maximum size of a volume.

One of these limitations is partition tables. By industry standards,
partition tables are limited to 2 ^ 32 sectors. Sector size, another
limitation, is a function of hardware and industry standards, and is
typically 512 bytes. While sector sizes might increase in the future, the
current size puts a limit on a single volume of 2 terabytes (2 ^ 32 * 512
bytes, or 2 ^ 41 bytes).

The maximum number of files on an NTFS volume is 2 ^ 32 - 1.

Please be carefull, do you really need such a large SINGLE volume ?

Have you considered how long it will take to run CHKDSK ? how long to backup
? how long to restore ?

Would you not be better off having multiple smaller partitions/volumes ?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Best regards

Meinolf Weber
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers
no rights.
** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm

Post by p***@community.nospam
Hi all,
I have a Dell PE 2950 server with a single hardware Raid 5 volume
(Basic Disk 0) with 6 drives and a total size of 4655.00 GB. It has 2
39MB Dell Utilities Partition
200GB System Boot Partition - C:\
For some reason Disk Management is showing the remaining unallocated
1847.96GB Unallocated
2607.00 GB Unallocated
Why is that? I want to create 1 big partition (D:\) with all the
remaining unallocated space and I cannot do that now.
TIA!

p***@community.nospam

2008-09-18 21:56:08 UTC

Permalink

This server happens to be my backup server. It is going to run BackupExec
and I currently have 3TB worth of data I need to backup to disk. I
eventually plan on adding direct attached storage to this server as my
backups grow in size. But for now, I need some type of volume/partition to
store my backup data.

What are my options here? If I upgrade the disk to a dynamic disk would that
do anything? I read somewhere that Dynamic Disks are not recommended.

TIA!

Post by unknown
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/winserverfiles/thread/9e8ef71f-02c4-402c-b9b8-16d32b6cb8a2/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edwin vMierlo [MVP] 7/10/2008 2:50 AM PST
Max Partition on a MBR disk is 2TB Max Partition on a GPT disk is about
8589934592 TB (in theory) there are some limitations.... which effectively
will bring this to about 18 ExaByte
Please note a partition is on a single phisical disk.
Once you start using dynamic disks, you can actually create NTFS Volumes
much larger than a single partions....
In theory, the maximum NTFS volume size is 2 ^ 32 clusters. However, even
if there were hardware available to supply a logical volume of that
capacity, there are other limitations to the maximum size of a volume.
One of these limitations is partition tables. By industry standards,
partition tables are limited to 2 ^ 32 sectors. Sector size, another
limitation, is a function of hardware and industry standards, and is
typically 512 bytes. While sector sizes might increase in the future, the
current size puts a limit on a single volume of 2 terabytes (2 ^ 32 * 512
bytes, or 2 ^ 41 bytes).
The maximum number of files on an NTFS volume is 2 ^ 32 - 1.
Please be carefull, do you really need such a large SINGLE volume ?
Have you considered how long it will take to run CHKDSK ? how long to
backup ? how long to restore ?
Would you not be better off having multiple smaller partitions/volumes
? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Best regards
Meinolf Weber
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
confers no rights.
** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm

p***@community.nospam

2008-09-19 00:05:32 UTC

Permalink

OK, so situation #2:

I tried right clicking on Disk 0 and all the options to convert to Dynamic
disk or convert to GPT disk are disabled. Any ideas why? Here is what my
disk manager looks like:

39MB Healthy (EISA Configuration)
C: - 200GB Healthy (System, Boot)
1847.96GB Unallocated
2607.00 GB Unallocated

Any ideas?

Post by p***@community.nospam
This server happens to be my backup server. It is going to run BackupExec
and I currently have 3TB worth of data I need to backup to disk. I
eventually plan on adding direct attached storage to this server as my
backups grow in size. But for now, I need some type of volume/partition to
store my backup data.
What are my options here? If I upgrade the disk to a dynamic disk would
that do anything? I read somewhere that Dynamic Disks are not recommended.
TIA!

Post by unknown
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/winserverfiles/thread/9e8ef71f-02c4-402c-b9b8-16d32b6cb8a2/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edwin vMierlo [MVP] 7/10/2008 2:50 AM PST
Max Partition on a MBR disk is 2TB Max Partition on a GPT disk is about
8589934592 TB (in theory) there are some limitations.... which
effectively will bring this to about 18 ExaByte
Please note a partition is on a single phisical disk.
Once you start using dynamic disks, you can actually create NTFS Volumes
much larger than a single partions....
In theory, the maximum NTFS volume size is 2 ^ 32 clusters. However, even
if there were hardware available to supply a logical volume of that
capacity, there are other limitations to the maximum size of a volume.
One of these limitations is partition tables. By industry standards,
partition tables are limited to 2 ^ 32 sectors. Sector size, another
limitation, is a function of hardware and industry standards, and is
typically 512 bytes. While sector sizes might increase in the future, the
current size puts a limit on a single volume of 2 terabytes (2 ^ 32 * 512
bytes, or 2 ^ 41 bytes).
The maximum number of files on an NTFS volume is 2 ^ 32 - 1.
Please be carefull, do you really need such a large SINGLE volume ?
Have you considered how long it will take to run CHKDSK ? how long to
backup ? how long to restore ?
Would you not be better off having multiple smaller partitions/volumes
? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Best regards
Meinolf Weber
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
confers no rights.
** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm

Edwin vMierlo [MVP]

2008-09-19 08:37:54 UTC

Permalink

Post by p***@community.nospam
I tried right clicking on Disk 0 and all the options to convert to Dynamic
disk or convert to GPT disk are disabled. Any ideas why?

You cannot convert a disk to GPT while there are partitions on it.
It seems to me that you bound one big disk on your internal RAID card, and
presented it as one big disk.
This is where you get into trouble.

If you have multiple disks, I would mirror (RAID-1) two of them, for the
boot/system disk, then RAID-5 (or 6 or 10) for Data, and present this as a
secondary disk to the OS.
At that point the larger (secondary disk) can be converted to GPT prior of
putting any partitions on.

You did not specify any of your storage hardware
- are you using RAID ? (specify)
- how many disk in your RAID array ? what capacity ?

Rgds,
Edwin.

Post by p***@community.nospam
Here is what my
39MB Healthy (EISA Configuration)
C: - 200GB Healthy (System, Boot)
1847.96GB Unallocated
2607.00 GB Unallocated
Any ideas?

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/winserverfiles/thread/9e8ef71f-02c4-402c-b9b8-16d32b6cb8a2/