Some major problems found during matrix raid migrations

[idata]

I was a little curious about RAID migrations with the intel matrix storage manager, so I tested a few and ran into some problems that might/will cause a loss of data. I will start with my configuration ... well the necessary parts

P55 chipset (PCH)

Windows 7 pro 64 bit

Latest and greatest Matrix storage manager software

6 1TB Seagate 7200.12's

What I tried was a RAID migration from a single hard drive to various RAID 5 and RAID 10 configurations. I found that this worked as long as my resulting RAID was less than or equal to 2TB.

So I could go from a single drive to a 4-disk RAID 10, but if I migrated to a 5 disk raid-5, the matrix storage manager would say that my resulting array would be 2047GB instead of 3600 or whatever it should be. I would tell the software to start the migration and it would start the work. Initially it would say that there was 18 hours remaining. I would check it out the next day and there would be 40+ hours remaining. I let it run for three days and it was up to 66 hours remaining and the progress bar said it was 2/3 complete. This is wrong. I stopped the migration. I dont know if it would ever complete, and it was just a test so I had no data to lose.

A list of migrations that did not work with 1TB drives.

single -> 4 disk raid 5

single -> 5 disk raid 5

single -> 6 disk raid 5

single -> 6 disk raid 10 !!!!!!

There would probably be more problems if you used 1.5 or 2 TB drives considering the 2TB threshold.

I had no problems completing the mirror to 4+ disk raid 5.

These features are documented to work in the Matrix manual, but I dont think this is the case