Intel RAID Volume Sizes

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Lyphiard

New Member
Oct 17, 2015
17
3
3
I'm experiencing an issue while creating a RAID-10 volume with Intel's RST RAID. I have 4x 500 GB Samsung 850 Evo's that I'm planning to put in a RAID-10 Volume.

When I go to create the volume, it's telling me that the maximum capacity is 884.9 GB. It states that "The default value indicates the maximum capacity using the selected disks."



However, each of the disks show up as being 465.7 GB on the home screen, so theoretically, wouldn't the RAID-10 size be 931.4 GB instead of 884.9 GB?



Interesting thing is, I can create a volume of size 931.4 GB successfully:


However, the second I try to create a volume of size 932 GB, I will get this error:


Does anyone know if it's "safe" to use the volume that is 931 GB? It's over the default "maximum" capacity of the volume, so I don't want to take any risks with data corruption, etc.

Additionally, does anyone know why the "maximum" capacity really isn't the maximum? How is this calculated?
 

TangoWhiskey9

Active Member
Jun 28, 2013
402
59
28
What if you change the Strip to 16 in the first one? Maybe that's causing the delta?

All that stuff's calculated. Don't f* with it. Every time I think I am clever on RAID arrays it comes back to bite me.

RAID 0 1 10 are OK. Don't use Intel RAID 5.
 

Lyphiard

New Member
Oct 17, 2015
17
3
3
What if you change the Strip to 16 in the first one? Maybe that's causing the delta?

All that stuff's calculated. Don't f* with it. Every time I think I am clever on RAID arrays it comes back to bite me.

RAID 0 1 10 are OK. Don't use Intel RAID 5.
I never was planning on using RAID-5.

The calculated values are the same no matter what strip size I used. I've tried with 4kb, 8kb, 16kb, 32kb and 64kb. It's always 884.9 GB. I just didn't hit the arrow key enough times when I made that 931 GB volume.
 

TangoWhiskey9

Active Member
Jun 28, 2013
402
59
28
Safe would be to use default. I'd test using anything larger. You never know why they're calculating that reserved space. Could be to leave room for failure or who knows.
 

Lyphiard

New Member
Oct 17, 2015
17
3
3
Safe would be to use default. I'd test using anything larger. You never know why they're calculating that reserved space. Could be to leave room for failure or who knows.
Only thing I can think of is SSD over-provisioning, but I'm looking to see if anyone here can confirm why this is. I'd like to have at least a 900 GB volume if possible and safe due to what I'm using the server for.