ICH7R Problem with RAID-5 Capacity

TanMan Nov 26, 2009 9:13 AM

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I just bought 4 1.5TB drives to replace my 4 500GB drives in my ICH7R RAID-5 array. After installing the new drives, they all appear in the Ctrl-I BIOS config disk selection menu. Each drive shows as 1397.3GB. So far so good. But when I select all four drives, the array capacity shows as 95.8GB. Any attempt to set a higher capacity results in an error ("not enough capcity to create volume"). I can find no documentation listing a maximum array size for the ICH7R chipset. Help!

1. Re: ICH7R Problem with RAID-5 Capacity

PeterUK Nov 26, 2009 9:35 AM (in response to TanMan)

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I can find no documentation listing a maximum array size for the ICH7R chipset.

That would be 2TB until you get to ICH9R or higher allowing 2-256TB data volume support.
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2. Re: ICH7R Problem with RAID-5 Capacity

TanMan Nov 26, 2009 9:50 AM (in response to PeterUK)

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Where did you find this info?
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3. Re: ICH7R Problem with RAID-5 Capacity

Overmind Dec 12, 2009 2:34 PM (in response to TanMan)

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You can create 2x2047MB RAID 5 arrays and you'll have 97.7GB left unused additionally.
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4. Re: ICH7R Problem with RAID-5 Capacity

TanMan Dec 12, 2009 2:46 PM (in response to PeterUK)

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I ultimately did find the table of max array sizes on Intel's website, and PeterUK is correct about the 2TB limit on an ICH7R. I bought a new motherboard with an ICH10R (aka Series 4) chipset, and I was able to create the 4.5TB array. Note that I also had to install a 64-bit version of Windows, since 32-bit versions have a 2TB per disk limit.

Hopefully Google will index this entry so others can find it.
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