Hi photoeditor,
if you are using Windows XP, I fear you're in for a nasty surprise.
Windows XP has a disk/partition/volume size limit of 2 TB. This means that you will not be able to create one large volume on the DriveStation Quattro 4 TB configured in the (default) RAID 5 mode. Theoretically this volume would be 3 TB in size.
In the Knowledge base (http://www.buffalotech.com/knowledgebase/users/kb.php?id=10241&category_id=7&sid2=) it is stated that this can be circumvented using the (commercial) GPT Mounter (http://shop.mediafour.com/ProductCart/pc/MainIndex.asp), but this is explicitely denied by the supplier on the product's homepage (http://www.mediafour.com/products/gptmounter/). A previous question about this problem in this forum (http://forums.buffalotech.com/buffalo/board/message?board.id=0101&message.id=1854&query.id=17617#M1854) has been left unanswered since November, 24th.
Because of the Windows XP limitations the DriveStation Quattro 4 TB will default to creating 2 drives on its RAID 5 disk set: one with the maximum size Windows XP can support (1,99 TB) and one with the space left after that. In my case the unit came with 4 Samsung HD103UJ drives of 1000.0 GB, which is *not* equal to 4 times 1 TB as Windows count. Therefore the second drive ended having a 745 GB size.
Worse still, this second drive can only be seen in Windows XP when using the USB connection of the DriveStation Quattro 4 TB. Using the eSATA connection will make the second drive disappear.
HTH.
Kind regards,
Jan J.
Message Edited by jqjansse on 12-05-2008 01:51 PM