RAID question

[ability]

Hi. Earlier I posted something on my raid not working properly, but I think I got it working, although when I right click on my c: drive and look at the size it's only the size of one of the drives, is this normal?

 

[Matthias99]

If it's a 2-disk RAID1, yes. RAID0/JBOD should be the size of both disks added together.

You should be able to check the array status/size/configuration in whatever software you used to create the array.

 

[ability]

It's a raid 0 setup, in the raid software, the "Array 0" says there is 2 HDD's and the size is 138.5 GB, which is the correct size, but I'm so confused why when I right click on my C: drive it only says 69.2 GB

 

[Matthias99]

Did you look at the drive under Disk Management (right-click "My Computer", select "Manage...", in 'Disk Management')? There may be unpartitioned space on there.

 

[ability]

Thanks Matthias, that worked out great, but I have one more question before I continue: Do I select Primary Partition or Extended Partition?

 

[Matthias99]

I've always used a "Primary" partition, but I'm not sure 100% what this choice does other than making the drive (theoretically) bootable. You might try the Operating Systems forum for more detailed information on what the differences are.

 

[ability]

Thanks a lot, I'll just go with your best word, since it's worked for you.

 

[ability]

I have another question about RAID, i mind as well just ask it here:

When you have raid 0 with 2 drives, should you only have one C: drive, or should both the drives show up? Like, after I partitioned my second drive it has the label of F:, is there a way I can combine it into one C: drive, or not?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: ability
I have another question about RAID, i mind as well just ask it here:

When you have raid 0 with 2 drives, should you only have one C: drive, or should both the drives show up? Like, after I partitioned my second drive it has the label of F:, is there a way I can combine it into one C: drive, or not?

You *have* one RAID array; you originally created a "C" partition with less than the full capacity of the drive (hence the unused space you could see in Disk Management). I thought this was what you had intended to do, but apparently not.

If you want to merge the two partitions into one at this point, you will either need to reinstall Windows (making a single 160GB partition instead of a 60GB one during the install process), or use third-party software like Partition Magic.

This is real, real basic hard drive/partition management stuff. Doing some reading/searching would probably be a good idea...

 

[ability]

Am I running raid 0 though? or not? Sorry I'm just trying to learn all this.

 

[Matthias99]

???

Um, yes. Of course. You built a RAID0 array and installed Windows on it, no? How would you NOT be running RAID0 at this point?

 

[ability]

I just thought that raid 0 was a combination of two drives into one is all. I didn't think that there would be two drives to select from after I did it.