Jump to content
  • 0

8TB Archive showing up as 1.3 TB


RobbieH

Question

I'm not sure where else to ask, you all seem to be the type of people that live out on the edge like I do.

 

I have a Windows 7 VM running in VMWare 6.5. The system currently has two 5TB WD Red drives that I use in a DrivePool for storage. Opening "Computer" shows the two drives as 4.54 TB, all is well.

 

So, I want to add an 8TB Archive drive. I set up the RDM in VMWare the same exact way I set up the 5TB drives. VMWare sees the drive as a capacity of 7.28 TB. In the Windows 7's VM settings, it also sees the drive there as 7.28 TB, and I have all the settings the same as how I configured the 5TB drives.

 

BUT

 

I go into W7 Disk Management and it shows the drive as only being 1307.91 GB. I've tried everything I can think of to get this drive to show as 8TB but nothing.

 

Oh, and it's that way even when Unallocated. I did set it up as GPT (as are the 5TB drives) but still it's just 1.3TB.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 answers to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 0

can you format it on the host machine directly to 7.28TB as a single partition?

 

It will need to be GPT to get more than 2.2TB

 

is it connected to a different sata controller?

 

is the controller set to AHCI?

 

Win 7 32 bit only supports 2TB but Win 7 64 supports GPT so thats not your issue - so something is not getting passed through correctly

 

Have you tried the vmware forums?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Robbie,

 

I am just curious, if you were to carve out some space for a new VM running, let's say Ubuntu, what would Ubuntu see? For some strange reasons, I have a feeling it is the OS. If vSphere is reporting it as 7.xTB, if RDM was done properly, it should be visible. However, if the OS never understood anything above a certain size in the HDD.... maybe that's where the issue is.

 

When you say VMWare 6.5, I am assuming ESXi 6.5, correct?

Also, here is a thread I found that have similar symptoms to what you are seeing...

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3037971/seagate-8tb-hdd-shows-1307-91gb-win7-2tb-bios.html

 

The op also saw 1.33TB from a 8TB Seagate.... One of the answers was, switch channels.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Sorry I left that out, drive is GPT.

 

It is in VMWare ESXi 6.5 and the VM has been upgraded to v13.

 

Hard drive is on a SCSI controller (this is common in VMWare). It is on SCSI 1:3, the two 5TB drives are on 1:1 and 1:2.

 

It shows the proper size everywhere in VMWare Client, but not in Windows. 

 

I saw that Tom's article too, but it had nothing to do with this problem unfortunately. But, I did try them.

 

In the real motherboard BIOS, it is on AHCI. 

 

All the settings other than the SCSI channel are the same as the 5TB, but this one simply isn't working right. I may pull it and try it on my W10 box and see what happens. But, for now, I'm going to fiddle with the SCSI controller settings. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Here's how Disk Manager looks. Note the 5TB drives are fine. The DrivePool says 2TB, but it shows up as 9+ in "Computer". 

 

Don't worry, I've been trying to partition it in every way. This is after doing a "clean" in diskpart.

 

disks_zpsk9xl5yro.jpg


Try changing the LSI SAS to vmware's built in one... or even SATA...

 

Doesn't the Controller association gives the VM complete control over that specific controller?

 

See above, I did try that. :)  But, it's still sitting at 1.3T

 

As far as I know, it does.


Whoa, that's strange!!! Putting it on an IDE controller in VSphere fixed it. Boy that kind of stinks, but oh well. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

I suggest you review all of your drive's connectors in ESXi... especially the RDM to your VM.

From what I remember reading, if you gave a controller to one particular VM, it may generate some unexpected results. This goes beyond your current Win7 VM but all the other ones that you have... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

So all my drives are RDMs so that I can get SMART info, and so that they will stay in Windows format.

 

I have two VMs that access their own drives. A Windows Server Essentials 2012 with two 2TB drives, and the W7 box with the 5TB drives and the one 8TB.

 

Each of the two VMs have their own SCSI controllers. WSE uses SCSI-1, W7 uses SCSI22. 

 

I tried adding a third SCSI controller to the W7 VM, but it will not let me. I'm guessing this is a limitation of the free license. The boot disk is a normal VMWare drive (SSD) for boot on SCSI-0.

 

I did notice that using the Virtual IDE controller limits the drive so that it cannot pass SMART info to Scanner. Not the end of the world, really.

 

This has been running like this for a long time under 5.5. I just did the 6.5 upgrade yesterday. 

 

I'm not sure what it is specifically you want me to check, but if you'll clarify I'll be glad to check it out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

I figured out how to work around this issue. I discovered this while trying to configure a 3TB drive in my other server. There's something in VMWare that blocks how the BIOS sees the drives. So, a 3TB drive shows up as 700 GB, and a very large drive shows up as 1.3TB. I believe the issue only occurs when using RDM drives. I found that if you first format the drives in another machine, then put them in the server, they work perfectly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Answer this question...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...