RAID 5 Volume Size Problem

[Titan2k]

I'm in the process of building a NAS for our lab group and I'm running into a problem with the resulting volume. The NAS is built out of the following parts:

Mobo + CPU + VGA
Case + PSU
NIC
RAID Controller
4 x 1.5 TB HDD
Old CD Drive

The RAID controller is a 3Ware 9650SE 4-port model (firmware version FE9X 3.08.00.016).

When I go into the RAID BIOS to I can see all four HDDs, each registering as 1.36 TB. If I create a single unit out of all 4 of them in a RAID 5 configuration (64KB stripe size, write cache enabled, drive queuing enabled, continue on error when rebuild disabled, and a 2 GB Boot volume size) the resulting size is 2.98 TB.

Theoretically, the volume size should be equal to the number of drives minus one, times the drive volume, 1.5TB*(4-1) = 4.5TB. What am I doing wrong? I have not installed an OS yet but am planning on using OpenFiler x86-64.

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[HendrixFan]

http://r-1.ch/disksize.cgi

Also, Im not sure what you mean when you said you created a 2GB boot volume.

 

[Titan2k]

The problem is not a units problem. 1.5TB = 1500GB = 1397 GiB (from your calculator).

1397GiB*(4-1) = 4191 GiB (Expected RAID volume)

The available settings in the RAID 5 setup are:

Array Name: Storage
RAID Configuration: RAID 5
Stripe Size: 64 KB
Write Cache Setting: Enabled
Drive Queuing Mode: Enabled
Continue On Error When Rebuild: Disabled
StorSave Profile: Protection
Boot Volume Size: 2 (in units of GB)

2.98TB resulting from those settings is far short of the expected 4.2TB.

 

[MerlinRML]

Originally posted by: Titan2k
The problem is not a units problem. 1.5TB = 1500GB = 1397 GiB (from your calculator).
1397GiB*(4-1) = 4191 GiB (Expected RAID volume)
...
2.98TB resulting from those settings is far short of the expected 4.2TB.

It appears that your RAID controller is only utilizing 1TB per drive. Judging by the relative age of that card (from memory), I would guess that you just need a firmware update to handle larger than 1TB drives.

Have you checked for newer firmware? What about the hardware compatibility list from the vendor? AMCC is big enough, that I can't imagine they haven't had a customer try this yet.

 

[Titan2k]

There is a newer driver but I'm still trying to figure out how to install it. I didn't install a floppy drive and I can't figure out how to add the necessary files to a bootable CD ISO. My next try is to just burn the ISO and hope I can access a flash memory stick once booted.

AMCC has, in general, been very unhelpful.

 

[Titan2k]

The BIOS is now up to date but the problem remains. Does anyone know of a good RAID controller? I'd like to have one RAID 5 volume with Openfiler 64-bit.

 

[Titan2k]

After finally getting someone from tech support who actually knew what they were talking about we figured out it was just that the controller was just REPORTING the incorrect volume size but was indeed creating the expected volume size.

Now I have to figure out why Openfiler is having issues...