Unable to create VHD

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AntoineG
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2012 10:09 am

Fri Dec 14, 2012 10:43 am

Hello,

I'm using the StarWind Free Edition for testing purposes.

My server embed a RAID card and I plugged 6 HDDs on it. They are configured in RAID 5 level with the fallowing settings:
- Sector Size: 1 KB
- Stripe Size: 16 KB
- Capacity: 4000,55 GB

I install Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and I create a single partition (on the RAID logical drive) of 3700GB with the default settings.

At this point, I'm unable to create a VHD with the StarWind UI. At the end of the creation process I have an error which basically says that StarWind cannot create the *.img file.

I have been trying the same thing with the Windows disk management tool (creating a *.vhd file). There is an error message at the end of the process which says "The sector size of the physical disk on which the virtual disk resides is not supported".

What can I do ?

Thanks
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anton (staff)
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Fri Dec 14, 2012 1:06 pm

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 do not support native 4KB blocks (unlike Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8) so you need to enable 512E support with your hard disk (512 byte block emulation on top of a native 4KB blocks).
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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AntoineG
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2012 10:09 am

Fri Dec 14, 2012 2:48 pm

Thanks a lot, it works!

By default, my RAID card create logical disk with 1024bytes sectors above 2Tb of size. The solution was to create several logical disk with a size below 2Tb...
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anton (staff)
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Fri Dec 14, 2012 11:29 pm

Good.

I would recommend to stick with 4KB blocks and upgrade to Windows Server 2012 and VHDX however.
AntoineG wrote:Thanks a lot, it works!

By default, my RAID card create logical disk with 1024bytes sectors above 2Tb of size. The solution was to create several logical disk with a size below 2Tb...
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

Image
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