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I have a freshly configured HP Proliant ML350 G6 (initially diskless) server running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise.

Is it possible to use four 1.5Tb disks in an internal RAID10 array in Proliant ML350 G6 (That should give us around 3Tb of storage)? I am asking because I am only able to allocate partitions to first 2048Gb of my RAID10 array, last part of the disks is shown as "Unallocated" and there is no option to create any partitions there.

Technical specs indicate that I should be able to install a maximum 8x2Tb (here).

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Two things, firstly for >2TB you need to use a GPT partition type (right click on the drive number) but secondly BIOS-based systems can't boot from GPT partitions, only EFI-based machines - your ML is BIOS based. Luckily you have a P410i inside that box, you should be able to use the use ACU/ORCA to carve up your R10 array into two logicial drives, a small one for boot and the rest for your data drive, this latter one can use GPT just fine.

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  • Thanks! For this last line, did you mean to create 2 separate RAID1 volumes with two pairs of disks, or is it somehow possible to span multiple RAID10 volumes on these same 4 disks in ACU/ORCA? – Groo Oct 29 '10 at 7:36
  • No, the array of 4 x 1.5 (why 1.5 by the way? 2TB disks are SO cheap or have you got them already?) will be one R10 array, but the p410i lets you 'carve' that ~3TB of usable space into more than one 'logical disk', i.e. a say 100GB MBT one for the OS as disk 1 and the rest for a larger GPT data one as disk 2. Look at the manual here; bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/… – Chopper3 Oct 29 '10 at 7:53
  • Thanks a lot for the answer, I will try this as soon as I get some time. Why 1.5TB? We got them already - if it works with 1.5TB, it will work with 2TB, so I am focusing on this problem right now. – Groo Oct 29 '10 at 14:26
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    Thanks, it worked. My main problem was that ORCA didn't have an option to create more than one logical drive, but I found it in the ACU utility on the HP SmartStart bootable disk. – Groo Nov 4 '10 at 8:25
  • Such good news, well done :) – Chopper3 Nov 4 '10 at 8:35
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The limit you're running into is a 32-bit limit. The fact that you're seeing 3TB even in the list is a strong indicator that you're running into the 2TB limit of 32-bit land. This tells me that the RAID controller itself is internally 32-bit.

Those specs specify 8x2TB, which is to say 8, 2TB volumes. You won't be able to create RAID10 sets from 1.5TB disks. 1TB disks is as high as it supports for that function.

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  • Thanks. And do you think there could be something I could do to avoid wasting this 500MB on each drive? The only thing that comes to my mind is to create 2 separate RAID1 volumes, without striping. – Groo Oct 29 '10 at 7:50
  • @Groo That's about right. Create two 1.5TB RAID1 sets and deal with storage allocation across two volumes. – sysadmin1138♦ Oct 29 '10 at 14:18
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Yep that'll work, be aware that SATA disks don't tend to last all that long in server environments.

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