Partition new HP ProLiant server with Intelligent Provisioning

Question

Trying to install Windows 2012 R2 on a new ProLiant server using Intelligent Provisioning.

Using SSA I created a RAID 5 array.

IP wants to install the OS on the full drive, I want to create a 150GB partition to install the OS on and use the rest as a data volume.

I can't find anywhere in IP either in tools or the OS install process where I can specify disk partitions.

Am I missing something here?

Thanks!

Solution

Use the HP Smart Storage Administrator utility from the Intelligent Provisioning "Maintenance" menu.

Delete your logical drive. Create a Logical drive of the size and RAID level you wish. I don't recommend RAID5, but feel free to do that. Make the size 150GB.

From there, create a new logical drive to fill the remaining space.

Now, you can run your Intelligent Provisioning Windows installer and point it to the 150GB block device.

Comments

[Tom]

Thanks, why wouldn't you recommend RAID5? It's 6 drives @ 600GB each.

[ewwhite]

@TomIt's no longer a suggested option. There's plenty online to reinforce that. You'll be relatively safe with 10k disks and RAID 5, but it's not a best-practice anymore.

[SnakeDoc]

@ewwhite to clarify, you aren't recommending against RAID in general, only that there are better options than RAID 5 (RAID6 for instance, or 10).

[ewwhite]

RAID 1+0 is great. RAID5 can work for enterprise disks. RAID 1+0 and 6 are good for large 7,200 RPM drives.