Matrix Raid with different disk sizes, how to use the capacity that is unassigned to Raid array ?

[idata]

Hi all,

I started using Intel Matrix Raid with a 2*400Gb Raid-0 Volume.

What I had

HDD1

400GB

HDD2

400GB

Raid-0

800GB

400GB400GB

Now I added 2 new 1Tb disks and expanded the Raid-0 volume to these new drives so I get a Raid-0 Volume of 4*400Gb=1600Gb, thanks to intel matrix storage manager for the expansion feature. I expanded my Raid-0 volume as wanted.

But I also wanted to use the space left on the 2 1Tb drives (600Gb left on each disk) to create a Raid-1 on 2 disks but I didn't find a way to perform this.

Summary of the solution I planned to do:

what I planned

to do

HDD1

400GB

HDD2

400GB

HDD3

1000GB

HDD4

1000GB

Raid-0

1600GB

400GB400GB400GB400GB

Raid-1

600GB

600GB600GB

But, in Intel Matrix Storage Manager it shows that I have 1 Array of 1600Gb capacity with the Raid-0 volume taking all this space, and all 4 disks attached to this array. I cannot create a new volume because the array is full and they are no more disks wich are not already attached to an array.

As I didn't managed to perform this solution I get:

what I have

up to now

HDD1

400GB

HDD2

400GB

HDD3

1000GB

HDD4

1000GB

Raid-0

1600GB

400GB400GB400GB400GB

Unused capacity

1200GB

600GB600GB

My question is: how can I use the 600Gb unassigned capacity of my 1Tb disks that are not used by the raid array ? (either creating another raid array for raid-1, or just having access as stand-alone drives, or whatever solution allowing me to use this unassigned capacity)

System info: Intel ICH8R, Intel Matrix Storage Manager 8.8, Vista-64 + Fedora-9 (dual-boot)

[idata]

I have a similar problem. I want to use a 1TB drive and a 250GB drive in raid1 (one 250GB raid1 partition and one 750GB non-raid partition).

Did you check in the windows disk manager to see if you could create a partition in the available space?

[idata]

Hi, mitch.net.

Unfortunately, there is no way to take advantage of that unused capacity with your current configuration. The only way to access unused array space is if you can expand the volume to fill the entire array or can create a second volume that uses the remaining capacity (both of which would require 4 disks, all with space). In order to create a second volume on an existing array, there needs to be space across all the disks on that array; you have a 4-disk RAID 0 volume, so any second volume on that array would need to also use all 4 disks. In order to expand the volume, there needs to be space on all of the disks in that array to expand into (e.g. max volume size is always limited by the size of the smallest disk in the array).