Large drive support

Now that drives over 2TB are common place (I've seen up to 12Tb
listed)...I'm just wondering about Win10 support for such drives.


Today I installed a 4TB drive in a friend's Win7 machine and though the
full drive was supported using Seagate's Disk Wizard software...I am
wondering why Microsoft did not think ahead and build in such support?


Especially for the older non-UEFI motherboards.




(It seems like only yesterday when I *nervously* handled a 2Gb drive and
was wondering what I was going to do with something that huge.)

philo wrote:
Now that drives over 2TB are common place (I've seen up to 12Tb
listed)...I'm just wondering about Win10 support for such drives.


Today I installed a 4TB drive in a friend's Win7 machine and though the
full drive was supported using Seagate's Disk Wizard software...I am
wondering why Microsoft did not think ahead and build in such support?


Especially for the older non-UEFI motherboards.




(It seems like only yesterday when I *nervously* handled a 2Gb drive and
was wondering what I was going to do with something that huge.)

interesting read

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2581408

On 09/10/2015 01:50 PM, Moss Grimmik wrote:
philo wrote:
Now that drives over 2TB are common place (I've seen up to 12Tb
listed)...I'm just wondering about Win10 support for such drives.


Today I installed a 4TB drive in a friend's Win7 machine and though
the full drive was supported using Seagate's Disk Wizard software...I
am wondering why Microsoft did not think ahead and build in such support?


Especially for the older non-UEFI motherboards.




(It seems like only yesterday when I *nervously* handled a 2Gb drive
and was wondering what I was going to do with something that huge.)

interesting read

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2581408




Thanks...I think in this case I was better off using the Seagate tools
as the article implied that Windows updates may be needed.


The machine is dedicated for photo processing and is never used on-line
nor will it ever be...so Windows has not been updated.

In article , says...

Now that drives over 2TB are common place (I've seen up to 12Tb
listed)...I'm just wondering about Win10 support for such drives.


Today I installed a 4TB drive in a friend's Win7 machine and though the
full drive was supported using Seagate's Disk Wizard software...I am
wondering why Microsoft did not think ahead and build in such support?


Especially for the older non-UEFI motherboards.




(It seems like only yesterday when I *nervously* handled a 2Gb drive and
was wondering what I was going to do with something that huge.)

I believe it has to do with how it was formatted. There's some
"extension" (formatted slightly differently) allows more than a 2Tb
drive for NTFS drives. I do not believe you need to use Seagate's Disk
Wizard.

I'm guessing that if you removed the Seagate Disk Wizard software and
then went into Disk Management and deleted/removed whatever you find for
that drives partition setup so it's basically just a raw disk again and
then tried to allocate it all as a 4Tb disk it would and then properly
format it etc. so it'd be usable as one large disk.

I had no problems with my 3TB external for awhile now. It has always
been recognized as a 3Tb drive and it all appears usable without errors.
And it's also a Seagate

On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 13:35:22 -0500, philo wrote:

Now that drives over 2TB are common place (I've seen up to 12Tb
listed)...I'm just wondering about Win10 support for such drives.

I wouldn't expect any issues at all, but there are a few things to consider.
First, it needs to be formatted as GPT instead of MBR. If you had formatted
it with Windows Disk Management, that would have happened automatically. The
Seagate tool likely did the same thing. Second, if your friend ever intends
to boot from it, his PC needs to be using UEFI rather than BIOS.

My concern with the Seagate tool is that it might be 'smart' and create
multiple partitions when the user wanted only one, but other than that it
should be fine.

If you installed it as an internal drive, then Disk Management can be used
to manage it, but if it's actually an external drive, enclosed in a Seagate
case, then funky things could be going on inside there and in that case I
would remove it from its case and connect it internally. That's just me,
though. I don't want unexpected partitions complicating my life.

Today I installed a 4TB drive in a friend's Win7 machine and though the
full drive was supported using Seagate's Disk Wizard software...I am
wondering why Microsoft did not think ahead and build in such support?

Support has been there since XP SP3, I believe.

Especially for the older non-UEFI motherboards.

The drive can be used as a data drive only, not a bootable drive, due to the
lack of UEFI. That's usually not a problem.

In article ,
says...

In article , says...

Now that drives over 2TB are common place (I've seen up to 12Tb
listed)...I'm just wondering about Win10 support for such drives.


Today I installed a 4TB drive in a friend's Win7 machine and though the
full drive was supported using Seagate's Disk Wizard software...I am
wondering why Microsoft did not think ahead and build in such support?


Especially for the older non-UEFI motherboards.




(It seems like only yesterday when I *nervously* handled a 2Gb drive and
was wondering what I was going to do with something that huge.)

I believe it has to do with how it was formatted. There's some
"extension" (formatted slightly differently) allows more than a 2Tb
drive for NTFS drives. I do not believe you need to use Seagate's Disk
Wizard.

I'm guessing that if you removed the Seagate Disk Wizard software and
then went into Disk Management and deleted/removed whatever you find for
that drives partition setup so it's basically just a raw disk again and
then tried to allocate it all as a 4Tb disk it would and then properly
format it etc. so it'd be usable as one large disk.

I had no problems with my 3TB external for awhile now. It has always
been recognized as a 3Tb drive and it all appears usable without errors.
And it's also a Seagate

All said for what I wrote but want to add I also believe larger than 2Tb
drives can be problamatic if trying to use one to boot the pc. Fine as
secondary and external drives.

On 09/10/2015 02:35 PM, philo wrote:

Now that drives over 2TB are common place (I've seen up to 12Tb
listed)...I'm just wondering about Win10 support for such drives.


Today I installed a 4TB drive in a friend's Win7 machine and though the
full drive was supported using Seagate's Disk Wizard software...I am
wondering why Microsoft did not think ahead and build in such support?


Especially for the older non-UEFI motherboards.

(It seems like only yesterday when I *nervously* handled a 2Gb drive and
was wondering what I was going to do with something that huge.)

My first computer was a brown-case "Osborne 1" with two single-sided
single-density 5 1/4" floppy drives holding 92KB each. I remember seeing
an add-on box with a 5MB full-height 5 1/4" hard disk for $2000 (I think
the brand was "GreyMatter") and thinking, "If only I could afford one of
those, I'd never have to buy any more floppies."

Perce

On 09/10/2015 02:39 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 13:35:22 -0500, philo wrote:

Now that drives over 2TB are common place (I've seen up to 12Tb
listed)...I'm just wondering about Win10 support for such drives.

I wouldn't expect any issues at all, but there are a few things to consider.
First, it needs to be formatted as GPT instead of MBR. If you had formatted
it with Windows Disk Management, that would have happened automatically. The
Seagate tool likely did the same thing. Second, if your friend ever intends
to boot from it, his PC needs to be using UEFI rather than BIOS.

My concern with the Seagate tool is that it might be 'smart' and create
multiple partitions when the user wanted only one, but other than that it
should be fine.

If you installed it as an internal drive, then Disk Management can be used
to manage it, but if it's actually an external drive, enclosed in a Seagate
case, then funky things could be going on inside there and in that case I
would remove it from its case and connect it internally. That's just me,
though. I don't want unexpected partitions complicating my life.

Today I installed a 4TB drive in a friend's Win7 machine and though the
full drive was supported using Seagate's Disk Wizard software...I am
wondering why Microsoft did not think ahead and build in such support?

Support has been there since XP SP3, I believe.

Especially for the older non-UEFI motherboards.

The drive can be used as a data drive only, not a bootable drive, due to the
lack of UEFI. That's usually not a problem.



Ah, yes...

It's just a data drive so not an issue about booting...thanks

On 09/10/2015 03:25 PM, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 09/10/2015 02:35 PM, philo wrote:

Now that drives over 2TB are common place (I've seen up to 12Tb
listed)...I'm just wondering about Win10 support for such drives.


Today I installed a 4TB drive in a friend's Win7 machine and though the
full drive was supported using Seagate's Disk Wizard software...I am
wondering why Microsoft did not think ahead and build in such support?


Especially for the older non-UEFI motherboards.

(It seems like only yesterday when I *nervously* handled a 2Gb drive and
was wondering what I was going to do with something that huge.)

My first computer was a brown-case "Osborne 1" with two single-sided
single-density 5 1/4" floppy drives holding 92KB each. I remember seeing
an add-on box with a 5MB full-height 5 1/4" hard disk for $2000 (I think
the brand was "GreyMatter") and thinking, "If only I could afford one of
those, I'd never have to buy any more floppies."

Perce




A few years back a friend of mine gave me his father's old Kaypro...it
had a 5Mb hard drive I believe.

The company I worked for (among other things) was a distributor for
Non-Linear Systems...and I had some old price sheets.

When I showed him that the Kaypro cost (I think) somewhere around
$7000...he said "No wonder my mother got mad when he bought it!"

On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 16:01:24 -0300, pjp
wrote:

I believe it has to do with how it was formatted. There's some
"extension" (formatted slightly differently) allows more than a 2Tb
drive for NTFS drives. I do not believe you need to use Seagate's Disk
Wizard.

I thought NTFS by itself would support more than 2Tb....

--
//Steve//

philo wrote:
Now that drives over 2TB are common place (I've seen up to 12Tb listed)...I'm just
wondering about Win10 support for such drives.

Today I installed a 4TB drive in a friend's Win7 machine and though the full drive was
supported using Seagate's Disk Wizard software...I am wondering why Microsoft did not
think ahead and build in such support?

Especially for the older non-UEFI motherboards.

(It seems like only yesterday when I *nervously* handled a 2Gb drive and was wondering
what I was going to do with something that huge.)

Two GB was the ultimate limit at very high cost until giant magnetoresistance was
discovered. Took years to actually get it to work.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news...e-nobel-prize/

On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 15:02:59 -0700, "Steve Silverwood [KB6OJS]"
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 16:01:24 -0300, pjp
wrote:

I believe it has to do with how it was formatted. There's some
"extension" (formatted slightly differently) allows more than a 2Tb
drive for NTFS drives. I do not believe you need to use Seagate's Disk
Wizard.

I thought NTFS by itself would support more than 2Tb....

Common disk formats are MBR and now GPT for larger drives. NTFS is just a
filesystem, not a disk format.

Char Jackson wrote:
On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 13:35:22 -0500, philo wrote:

Now that drives over 2TB are common place (I've seen up to 12Tb
listed)...I'm just wondering about Win10 support for such drives.

I wouldn't expect any issues at all, but there are a few things to consider.
First, it needs to be formatted as GPT instead of MBR. If you had formatted
it with Windows Disk Management, that would have happened automatically. The
Seagate tool likely did the same thing. Second, if your friend ever intends
to boot from it, his PC needs to be using UEFI rather than BIOS.

My concern with the Seagate tool is that it might be 'smart' and create
multiple partitions when the user wanted only one, but other than that it
should be fine.

If you installed it as an internal drive, then Disk Management can be used
to manage it, but if it's actually an external drive, enclosed in a Seagate
case, then funky things could be going on inside there and in that case I
would remove it from its case and connect it internally. That's just me,
though. I don't want unexpected partitions complicating my life.

Today I installed a 4TB drive in a friend's Win7 machine and though the
full drive was supported using Seagate's Disk Wizard software...I am
wondering why Microsoft did not think ahead and build in such support?

Support has been there since XP SP3, I believe.

Especially for the older non-UEFI motherboards.

The drive can be used as a data drive only, not a bootable drive, due to the
lack of UEFI. That's usually not a problem.


When I used the Seagate tool, it was an instance of Acronis
Capacity Manager. For first 2.2TB of the drive is physical,
the space above it is "virtual", and so one drive appears as
two (or more) drives in Disk Management.

And when Acronis Capacity Manager operates, it doesn't even
place the two disks next to one another. A 3TB drive, might
show as Disk3 2.2TB and Disk5 0.8TB. I've never owned a big
enough drive to see if it handles a 6TB drive properly.

You might also notice some speed issues using tools like that.
If you use an offset mount in Linux, the 0.8TB section does
writes at around 10MB/sec in Linux, a fraction of normal
disk performance.

If you go with GPT, that should work to the users advantage
for data.

The Acronis Capacity Manager doesn't work with 3TB drives in
a USB enclosure. For that, you want GPT.

and the OS support table half way down this page, is handy
if you are planning your strategy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

Paul

In article ,
Steve Silverwood [KB6OJS] wrote:
On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 16:01:24 -0300, pjp
wrote:

I believe it has to do with how it was formatted. There's some
"extension" (formatted slightly differently) allows more than a 2Tb
drive for NTFS drives. I do not believe you need to use Seagate's Disk
Wizard.

I thought NTFS by itself would support more than 2Tb....

NTFS supports up to 16TB files and is capable of more, if you have
hardware that can support it. See:

http://superuser.com/questions/39834...tfs-partitions

Char Jackson wrote:
On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 15:02:59 -0700, "Steve Silverwood [KB6OJS]"
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 16:01:24 -0300, pjp
wrote:

I believe it has to do with how it was formatted. There's some
"extension" (formatted slightly differently) allows more than a 2Tb
drive for NTFS drives. I do not believe you need to use Seagate's Disk
Wizard.
I thought NTFS by itself would support more than 2Tb....

Common disk formats are MBR and now GPT for larger drives. NTFS is just a
filesystem, not a disk format.


They're partitioning schemes. And GPT has a protective MBR, so
it's backward compatible with MBR environments. If you stick
a GPT disk in an MBR-era machine, no havoc results, because
the OS sees the MBR 0x55AA signature bytes, sees there
is a single "weird" partition, and thus leaves the thing
alone. (Having a valid MBR, is intended to stop an
MBR-era machine from pestering you to "format" the drive...)

Whereas, a GPT-aware OS recognized the special value
of the single partition declared in the MBR, then goes looking
for the GPT partition table - a table with room for a ton
of partitions.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Scheme.svg.png

And according to this, the protective MBR shows a single
partition of type 0xEE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_type

Apple used a similar idea, when they switched to a newer
disk setup. They used a protective declaration at
the beginning of the disk (in case a new disk was
placed in an older computer). And I think it was even
clever enough to have a text document explaining
"what you were looking at". Something the Microsoft
world leaves to your imagination.

Paul