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Need a 1.5TB+ external enclosure
- Thread starter bassman
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I'd be more concerned about your operating system than your enclosure when going past 2TB. 48 bit LBA is good for 144 petabytes within a single drive. 48-bit LBA has been the standard for some time now (years) The previous LBA level, 28-bit, has long been replaced, as it only allowed 137GB drives.
To go past 2TB on a single drive, regardless of partitioning, you need an operating system that supports GPT disks. In the Windows world, that means XP 64bit, Vista, or Server 2003 (or later). The master boot record partition scheme can only address up to 2TB within a single partition table.
To go past 2TB on a single drive, regardless of partitioning, you need an operating system that supports GPT disks. In the Windows world, that means XP 64bit, Vista, or Server 2003 (or later). The master boot record partition scheme can only address up to 2TB within a single partition table.
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2[H]4U
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You can be an ass more.
I would expect that most external enclosures would be able to take all manner of SATA HDDs. Just mount it in and go for it. The reason why there was mention of GPT and such is so you can address partitions larger than 2TB, of which there are no individual drives that can do so.
If you're looking for RAID functionality (like RAID 0) look for RAID enclosures.
Does that answer your question now?
jay2472000
Gawd
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I would venture to say most all "dumb" enclosures arent limited to a particular drive size. If you go with something like a DROBO ( technically not an external drive, but still) you may have to look at the manufacturers specs. My external cases only act as an interface for the drive to talk to the PC and as a power supply to the drive. It doesnt matter if I use a 20gig, or 1,5 TB drive, the enclosure doesnt care.
What you MAY have problems with is your operating system seeing that much drive. I believe anything 32 bit can handle up to 2 TB , and not sure about 64 bit OS's.
This is what I personally have http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145027 and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337
Note that enclosure is NOT actively cooled, which is ok for me, as I use it once a week for about 20 minutes. I would not recommend that particular one for a 24/7 ON deal. Or you could add a 60mm fan like I did for active cooling.
What you MAY have problems with is your operating system seeing that much drive. I believe anything 32 bit can handle up to 2 TB , and not sure about 64 bit OS's.
This is what I personally have http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145027 and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337
Note that enclosure is NOT actively cooled, which is ok for me, as I use it once a week for about 20 minutes. I would not recommend that particular one for a 24/7 ON deal. Or you could add a 60mm fan like I did for active cooling.
You can be an ass more.
I would expect that most external enclosures would be able to take all manner of SATA HDDs. Just mount it in and go for it. The reason why there was mention of GPT and such is so you can address partitions larger than 2TB, of which there are no individual drives that can do so.
If you're looking for RAID functionality (like RAID 0) look for RAID enclosures.
Does that answer your question now?
Thanks for the help, but no, it doesn't. Do you know of an external enclosure that supports drives larger than 1.5TB?
GPT, etc... isn't the problem. I'm well aware of all of those facts. Everyone so far has assumed what I did or didn't know about large drives and partitions.
I'd like to find an enclosure that I know supports something larger than 1.5TB so I don't have to go out and buy yet another enclosure when I upgrade again.
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2[H]4U
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Have you had a problem with the WD20EADS in any particular enclosure? I wouldn't think the sole 2TB drive in the market today would be having problems with third-party aftermarket external enclosures than other drives.
Thanks for the links. It's good to know the Thermaltake enclosure can handle 1.5TB even though the spec page says "Supports up to 1,000 gigabytes!" (LOL)
In the not-so-distant past, enclosures would only support up to a certain drive size. I ran into the issue before when I moved from a 400gb external drive to a 750. Maybe things are different now, but I haven't seen any specs that indicate otherwise.
32 bit Linux handles 2TB+ partitions just fine as long as they are on top of GPT or LVM. I've successfully gone above 6TB using LVM and ext3. I'm not sure about Windows, but this isn't for a Windows server. I'd be surprised if recent versions of Windows didn't handle things alright, 32 bit or not.
I haven't, but I don't have the drive. I'm sitting with a 1.5TB drive now and want to avoid the hassle of buying a new enclosure every time I upgrade - like I've done in the past. I was hoping someone had tried the WD 2TB in an enclosure and could tell me it worked.
jay2472000
Gawd
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Bassman, ( note, this is forum experience speaking not RL experience) I believe from what I have read the reason a lot of these external drives say "Will support XXX Gig drive" is because at the time they were made/sold/marketed ( the enclosures) the XXX Gig drive was the largest at the time. That seems to be the standard way of them doing it. And given the way things are in the PC world, I can understand, I would hate to make a product, then claim it will support some future standard only to find out the next gen form factor has changed, etc. Also, given the 2Tb is pretty new, it may take a while for some better feedback than what I can give, I was >< close to buying one yesterday but got another 1.5 instead.
Yeah, that makes sense. It still sucks. I ended up ordering one of these - if it can't go bigger than 1.5TB at least I'm only out $40.
And you didn't pick up the 2TB? Come on, you don't want to be the guinea pig for me?
Unfortunately, that hasn't been my experience (hence the thread). An enclosure that supported a 400GB drive just fine refused to work with a 750GB drive. Obviously if 400GB worked, it was using 48 bit LBA.