disk "shrunk" after going into a 2850

[Brett Dikeman]

On Dec 19, 2007 4:36 PM,  <Patrick_Boyd at dell.com> wrote:
> The controller writes metadata at the end of the drive so that it knows
> what type of RAID it is and can match it up to other drives in its set.
> This is a fairly normal RAID practice and there really isn't anything
> you can do to get back the extra space at the end of the drive.

So it overwrote valid data on a foreign drive with raid controller
metadata for the old "array" that was on that port, without the
slightest warning?  I've never had a RAID controller, unprompted,
write metadata onto a disk.  A foreign disk, in fact, usually either
has to be specifically initialized for the array.

I don't recall whether I added the drive before removing the "array"
that was configured on that port, or if I deleted the "array" and then
added the drive.  If I added the drive in place of the sole drive of a
non-redundant single-drive array, the controller shouldn't have
touched it.  If I added the drive after removing the array, the
controller should not have written metadata part-way through the drive
(or declared the drive to be smaller.)

A few days ago, you said: "You can create a 1 drive RAID 0 which will
have the same effect as if it were a JBOD."

There appear to be significant caveats with that statement.  I hope
nobody else goes using this method to add a bare, non-RAID drive from
another system to a Dell Poweredge 2850 with Perc 4e/Di card.

It would have been nice to have received an answer to my inquiry
recently as to where to find manuals for the controller.  Maybe armed
with said documentation, I wouldn't have lost data.

Brett