5TB MicroNet RAID Platinum Help

[beradcee]

I need some help with my 5TB MicroNet RAID Platinum I am working on for a client.

It has 5, 1 TB Hard Drives. It is USB and Firewire compatible. You configure the RAID settings using a network cable and a browser.

I have tried to set up the drives using RAID 0 so I can see the entire 5TB as one partition and it says 5TB as storage as I set it up, but when I plug it in, I only see about 1.7 TB

There is an option that says "Greater than 2TB" and I says yes, but it still does not work, this option actually makes it only see 500 GB.

I tried this on XP 32-bit and 7 64-bit with the same results.

I am quite new to RAID so if anyone has some insight, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[sk1939]

RAID 0 is stripe and only allows you to use 2 hard drives which is the problem (1TB + 1TB = 1.7TB total). If you are trying to see all the drives you need to SPAN the drives. I would recommend against either SPAN or RAID 0, as a drive failure will cost you all of your data. RAID 1+0, 5, or 6 would be better options.

 

[palladin9479]

RAID 0 is stripe and only allows you to use 2 hard drives which is the problem (1TB + 1TB = 1.7TB total). If you are trying to see all the drives you need to SPAN the drives. I would recommend against either SPAN or RAID 0, as a drive failure will cost you all of your data. RAID 1+0, 5, or 6 would be better options.

Horribly incorrect.

RAID-0 has two modes first is striping and can be done across as many drives as your platform supports, the limit typically is eight. The second is spanning and again can be done across as many drives as your platform supports, typically eight. The difference between the two is how the data slices are organized. In stripping mode the slices are divided up amongst the member disks evenly and in sequence. Thus a file I/O will be spread out across all member disks but your limited to the maximum size of the smallest member disk * the total number of disks. Also you can not expand the array once created. Spanning has the slices laid out in sequence starting from the lowest numbered member disk and going till the highest numbered member disk. File I/O is not spread out evenly and often a few disks will be stressed the most, the array may be grown by simply adding on more slices and your disk size is not limited by the smallest member. Another term for spanning is concatenation. JBOD is sometimes uses but is an inappropriate term is JBOD is originally in reference to a volume that composes a single disk. Modern RAID controllers have very little use for the original definition of JBOD as their able to present the disks to the host OS without having to abstract them like they do RAID volumes.

Now to the original poster, I'm assuming you purchased a "NAS" device and that it's most likely running some variant of Linux. Does the WEB GUI properly recognize the member disks as 1TB, and does it show the proper volume size? How is it presenting it's volumes to NT? Most do it via SMB file sharing, so if this is the case we can see if there is some volume limit to the daemon their using.

 

[ss202sl]

^+1.

 

[beradcee]

Horribly incorrect.

RAID-0 has two modes first is striping and can be done across as many drives as your platform supports, the limit typically is eight. The second is spanning and again can be done across as many drives as your platform supports, typically eight. The difference between the two is how the data slices are organized. In stripping mode the slices are divided up amongst the member disks evenly and in sequence. Thus a file I/O will be spread out across all member disks but your limited to the maximum size of the smallest member disk * the total number of disks. Also you can not expand the array once created. Spanning has the slices laid out in sequence starting from the lowest numbered member disk and going till the highest numbered member disk. File I/O is not spread out evenly and often a few disks will be stressed the most, the array may be grown by simply adding on more slices and your disk size is not limited by the smallest member. Another term for spanning is concatenation. JBOD is sometimes uses but is an inappropriate term is JBOD is originally in reference to a volume that composes a single disk. Modern RAID controllers have very little use for the original definition of JBOD as their able to present the disks to the host OS without having to abstract them like they do RAID volumes.

Now to the original poster, I'm assuming you purchased a "NAS" device and that it's most likely running some variant of Linux. Does the WEB GUI properly recognize the member disks as 1TB, and does it show the proper volume size? How is it presenting it's volumes to NT? Most do it via SMB file sharing, so if this is the case we can see if there is some volume limit to the daemon their using.

Ok thanks for the reply first of all.

And yes the WEB GUI recognizes the disks as 1TB and it shows the capacity of 5TB using RAID 0. When I go to RAID 5, I get 4 TB I think and RAID 1 I get 2 or 3 TB as it says, but Windows Disk Management is only letting me see 1.7 max or less no matter what I try.

I do not care about redundancy because the user could care less. I just want max capacity.

When you say how is it presenting volumes to NT? I don't understand what that means completely. Do you mean how Windows is seeing the volumes or how the interface for configuring the NAS device.

Actually, I don't believe it is a NAS device. I have just been able to use the ethernet to configure the RAID over a browser. I don't see any way of actually accessing the drive over the network.

When I plug in using USB after configuring the RAIDset and the volumes, Windows asks to choose whether it is MPT or GUID and then it just shows an empty drive of 1.7 TB

 

[palladin9479]

That makes more sense then. It's not technically a NAS as it doesn't export the volume over a network and instead just connects it locally to a system. Basically it's an external RAID HBA on steroids.

Does it have an eSATA option? That would greatly increase our ability to communicate with the volume and decide on what's wrong. I have something very similar at the house, a MediaSonic enclosure with four 1TB disks connected via eSATA, there are no issues with volume size so it's not a windows thing.

When you set it to RAID-5 does windows still see 1.7TB or 4TB? Try creating an array out of three disks and see if it shows as 3TB. We're checking to see if there is a maximum size for LBA that this device can handle.

 

[palladin9479]

Ok just finished reading through the manual. It's basically an enterprise class HBA that abstracts it's volumes over an external interface. Using it with a USB connection is seriously doing it injustice, my suggest would be to acquire a FW800 card and use that, much better performance.

Which brings up the question, did you install the latest drivers from their website? This isn't like a regular USB external HDD where you just plug it in and use the default windows mass storage driver. Also how technically comfortable are you with the concepts of volumes / sets and LUNs? This allows you to device RAID sets into multiple volumes / LUNs for exporting to the host OS. This means you could very well have a 5TB raid set yet only exporting a 1.7TB volume while the rest of the disk storage remains unallocated.

I'd suggest making absolutely sure you have the latest firmware installed on the device and the latest drivers for Windows. Next you need to go through the configuration and make absolutely sure that you have it set to use the entire 1TB of disk space on each member disk for the volume. It should show a 5TB raid set and a 5TB raid volume. And finally I'd suggest moving to FW800 for performance reasons, USB is a poor protocol to do large amounts of disk I/O.

 

[beradcee]

I don't have the one with eSATA.

Just USB and FW800.

And I am not very familiar with concepts of volume sets and LUNs.

I will try everything you just stated, but I could not find the drivers to use from their website, as it was not very straightforward. I will keep trying.

 

[FireWire2]

Did you ever contact MicroNet? Just curious, if they do not support you, then I will stay away from them in the future

Here is my 2 cents.

If your raid does not reports over 2TB volume, then you need to re-create the RAID, otherwise follow below steps.

Open Win7's Disk Manager (DM) - DO NOT try with WinXP, cuz XP does not support volume over 2TB.

Repeat: DO NOT USE XP

Please note the DISK # of 1.7TB VOLUME. # can be 1. 2, or 3.... depend on number of drives in the system.

You can double check as monitoring the DM while plug the RAID to youor WIN7. A new drive will pop-up, remember that DISK #

go to DOS prompt
Type: DISKPART - A new DISKPART window will pop up
In this windows
Type: SELECT DISK # (where # is reference of RAID volume that you just plugged in)
After confirm the system select the volume
Then type: CLEAN
Type: Exit

Close all DOS PROMT windows

Switch back to DM you should see a whole volume.

Partition it in GPT - DO NOT use MBR
You are good to go

 

[beradcee]

Did you ever contact MicroNet? Just curious, if they do not support you, then I will stay away from them in the future

Here is my 2 cents.

If your raid does not reports over 2TB volume, then you need to re-create the RAID, otherwise follow below steps.

Open Win7's Disk Manager (DM) - DO NOT try with WinXP, cuz XP does not support volume over 2TB.

Repeat: DO NOT USE XP

Please note the DISK # of 1.7TB VOLUME. # can be 1. 2, or 3.... depend on number of drives in the system.

You can double check as monitoring the DM while plug the RAID to youor WIN7. A new drive will pop-up, remember that DISK #

go to DOS prompt
Type: DISKPART - A new DISKPART window will pop up
In this windows
Type: SELECT DISK # (where # is reference of RAID volume that you just plugged in)
After confirm the system select the volume
Then type: CLEAN
Type: Exit

Close all DOS PROMT windows

Switch back to DM you should see a whole volume.

Partition it in GPT - DO NOT use MBR
You are good to go

I never called them, I doubt it would still be under warranty and I don't know if I could call for help. I will try soon if your step does not work.

I will work on it Monday, when I go back to work. Thanks for the advice.

 

[FireWire2]

Make sure DO NOT use Windows XP - this is what get you into trouble from 1st place

 

[beradcee]

Did not work.

I just typed DISKPART, not DISKPART -A because the -a did not work

then I cleaned but it still did not work.

It is showing only 561 GB now

I am using Windows 7 64-bit

 

[beradcee]

I just contacted MicroNet btw.

You have to submit a ticket online using a form first so we shall see what happens.

 

[beradcee]

Here is what MicroNet replied with:

the PR5000U2F is limited to 2 luns of 2TB each, which was supported for the controller configured for RAID5 operation (this was a limitation of the host interface and this SKU was limited to custom orders.) I apologize for any confusion- this is mentioned in the manual in a number of places, so I assume you do not have the manual handy.

You may obtain the manual here:

http://www.micronet.com/support/manuals/PlatinumRAID_manual.pdf

 

[FireWire2]

Wait! Does the RAID report over TB? It does right? If so

Replace the SATA to USB/FW bridge (internal) because their bridge not support over 2TB, so remove it then you are OK.
Use this bridge instead: http://www.datoptic.com/sata-to-quad-interface-with-oxuf934dsb-chipset.html

Or

Since there is NO warranty so. Open it up
Connect it via SATA cable to your Win7. You will see over the WHOLE volume
I'm 99.9% sure of it

I would do this...
buy this: http://www.datoptic.com/sata-cable-to-esata-fit-scsi-cutout.html

Convert to eSATA, then get this USB3.0 to eSATA:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005DCCMII

Now you can connect to eSATA and USB3.0/USB2.0

 

[palladin9479]

Here is what MicroNet replied with:

the PR5000U2F is limited to 2 luns of 2TB each, which was supported for the controller configured for RAID5 operation (this was a limitation of the host interface and this SKU was limited to custom orders.) I apologize for any confusion- this is mentioned in the manual in a number of places, so I assume you do not have the manual handy.

You may obtain the manual here:

http://www.micronet.com/support/manuals/PlatinumRAID_manual.pdf

Well you should then try to create a single RAID5 disk array of all five disks (4GB total) then split it into two 2TB RAID volumes (luns basically). You computer should then see two drives connected to it. Use a firewire interface and you might be able to go one step further and have Windows RAID0 those two volumes (technique known as RAID50) to get a single 4TB Windows Dynamic Disk Volume. Windows won't bond multiple volumes on a USB port though so it's gotta be eSATA or FW.

Seems a bit complicated but you should be using FW anyway, USB really doesn't perform well for large disk access.

 

[beradcee]

Well I am only seeing one volume and now everytime no matter what RAID setup I use I only see 500 GB. Maybe because I am using USB, I will try FW next.

And I can't buy any parts at the moment and if I do, our receiving dept. will take forever to process them.

 

[FireWire2]

beradcee.

It wont help in FW... OK let me explain.

5x HDD <<-->>RAID engine <<-->> 4TB RAID5
This is what you have, but then 4TB RAID5 volume goes thru a bridge to provide you USB/FW host connections.

This bridge does not support volume size > 2TB. This is your box problem

Open it by pass the bridge, then you can see 4TB RAID -

You can tether it with SATA or SATA to eSATA cable

 

[beradcee]

ok. interesting. what a piece of trash if you ask me. Why does it even have 5TB's worth of space if the bridge is a piece of junk that only see's 40% capacity?

 

[palladin9479]

beradcee.

It wont help in FW... OK let me explain.

5x HDD <<-->>RAID engine <<-->> 4TB RAID5
This is what you have, but then 4TB RAID5 volume goes thru a bridge to provide you USB/FW host connections.

This bridge does not support volume size > 2TB. This is your box problem

Open it by pass the bridge, then you can see 4TB RAID -

You can tether it with SATA or SATA to eSATA cable

Modifying it to bypass the bridge is way outside his demonstrated technical expertise. It's why I haven't recommended it. Also we don't know what the inside of it looks like so the other bridge device might not even fit nor have it's ports line up with the already created ports.

ok. interesting. what a piece of trash if you ask me. Why does it even have 5TB's worth of space if the bridge is a piece of junk that only see's 40% capacity?

Well the issue is that the device was originally designed with eSATA in mind. Some idiot decided to stick an older bridge in it to make it work via USB. Read through the manual and it explains how to set up multiple volumes from the single 4TB array, that should bypass the 2TB limit on the chip. The recommendation for FW was more about speed and working around NT's limit on dynamic disks on a USB interface.

 

[beradcee]

Ok well I am going to spend some time working on it today, and yes, I would rather not open it up and try and hook up an adapter to this thing.

I will let you know the progress after I work on setting up the arrays.

 

[beradcee]

I was able to get a RAID 5 array to work.... But wow it was finicky. And the manual did not help as it was outdated and no help whatsoever... I manually created a RAID 5 array, then created a volume using RAID 5 but only at 2000 GB and after that initialized, I created another RAID array using the same settings and RAID 5 as the remaining 2000 GB. I was able to use MBR to initialize both volumes when I plugged it in and created two simple volumes at about 1860 GB each. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[palladin9479]

Sorry that you had to do such a sh1tty work around. Congrats on getting it working though.