Two 3TB RAID 1 storage size Query

[mteague]

Hi everyone

 

I have two 3TB hard drives set in RAID1. I set up the RAID through the Asus Maximus Hero VII easy settings. I know that with RAID1 you don't get double the storage such as 6TB but I thought you just get 3TB. However when I log into my PC and go to disk manager in Windows 8.1 I can only select 1.5TB with the rest un-selectable. 

 

Have I done something wrong, or is there something I need to do extra? I also abled the Intel Fast Storage option in the BIOS, and the Intel RAID shows the drives as RAID1. 

 

Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated. 

 

Thanks 

[Captain_WD]

Hi everyone

 

I have two 3TB hard drives set in RAID1. I set up the RAID through the Asus Maximus Hero VII easy settings. I know that with RAID1 you don't get double the storage such as 6TB but I thought you just get 3TB. However when I log into my PC and go to disk manager in Windows 8.1 I can only select 1.5TB with the rest un-selectable. 

 

Have I done something wrong, or is there something I need to do extra? I also abled the Intel Fast Storage option in the BIOS, and the Intel RAID shows the drives as RAID1. 

 

Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated. 

 

Thanks 

 

 

Hey mteague,

 

What are the drives that you have? Did you add both drives to the RAID array? It could be the case that the RAID is actually formed by only one drive and half of it is used for mirroring the other half. I'd go to RAID settings and verify that the two actual physical drives are in the array. What does the setting currently show? How is the array recognized in Device manager and Disk Management? 

 

Captain_WD.

[mteague]

Hi Captain_WD thanks for the reply. I have looked at my system and thought it was best to take photos to show you. 

 

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=CCF6DF67A4ED038D!943&authkey=!AHF2Tq3SqiSpr0M&ithint=folder%2cJPG

 

The drives were standard seagate 3TB drives. Intel Rapid Storage shows two drives as RAID1 and in my Bios setting it is set to RAID within the SATA config. I can see the RAID in BOOT options as well. I have never done RAID before so that's why I used the easy tuner that ASUS provides in the Hero VII BIOS. I selected the 2 drives when performing the setup but what do I need to look for in the BIOS that shows the 2 drives?

 

When looking at Disk Manager it shows Disc 0 with 2794.52GB but with 746.52GB unallocated. When I click on the unallocated space I cannot do anything as all the options are disabled. 

 

Sorry if this is really stupid and hopefully I've made some sense. 

 

Thanks again

[Captain_WD]

Hi Captain_WD thanks for the reply. I have looked at my system and thought it was best to take photos to show you. 

 

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=CCF6DF67A4ED038D!943&authkey=!AHF2Tq3SqiSpr0M&ithint=folder%2cJPG

 

The drives were standard seagate 3TB drives. Intel Rapid Storage shows two drives as RAID1 and in my Bios setting it is set to RAID within the SATA config. I can see the RAID in BOOT options as well. I have never done RAID before so that's why I used the easy tuner that ASUS provides in the Hero VII BIOS. I selected the 2 drives when performing the setup but what do I need to look for in the BIOS that shows the 2 drives?

 

When looking at Disk Manager it shows Disc 0 with 2794.52GB but with 746.52GB unallocated. When I click on the unallocated space I cannot do anything as all the options are disabled. 

 

Sorry if this is really stupid and hopefully I've made some sense. 

 

Thanks again

 

Interesting, did you use MBR or GPT to format the drive when you put them in the array in BIOS? I'd check both in BIOS and Windows how the drives are formatted. MBR formatted drives cannot use more than 2TB of their space and the rest is usually left out unallocated with grayed out options. 

 

Captain_WD.

[mteague]

Interesting, did you use MBR or GPT to format the drive when you put them in the array in BIOS? I'd check both in BIOS and Windows how the drives are formatted. MBR formatted drives cannot use more than 2TB of their space and the rest is usually left out unallocated with grayed out options. 

 

Captain_WD.

Hi Caotain WD thanks so much for the reply and sorry for my late response. I checked and it turned out it was formatted to MBR. I have turned it to GPT and I can now use the full 3TB. Thanks for the help, it was really appreciated.