2TB partition limit still exists?

[Batty_H]

Apologies for what is likely a dumb FAQ, but does the old 2TB limit for the maximum size of a storage partition on PCs still exist even for new machines with the UEFI BIOS and Windows 7 64-bit Professional? If it does exist, what exactly causes this limitation? Is it because some older software might not run properly, or is it still an inherent limit of some part of the machine’s hardware/software/firmware?

I recently tried to order the machine below from AVADirect, but the person working on my build told me that it is not possible to have a RAID 0 array or any partition for that matter, larger than 2TB on Windows. Is this still true, and if so, how are people building these new rigs with dozens of terabytes of storage, wouldn't that require the entire alphabet's worth of drive letters at 2TB per partition?


+ GAMING PC, Core™ i5 / i7 P67 Z68 SLI® / CrossFireX™ Custom Gaming System
INTEL, Core™ i7-2600K Quad-Core 3.4GHz, HD Graphics 3000, LGA1155, 8MB L3 Cache, 32nm, 95W, EM64T EIST HT TB VT-x XD, Retail

NOCTUA, NH-C14 CPU Cooling Fan, Socket 1155/1156/1366/775/AM3/AM2, Copper/Aluminum, Retail

ASUS, P8Z68-V PRO, LGA1155, Intel® Z68, DDR3-2200 (O.C.) 32GB /4, PCIe x16 SLI CF /2, SATA 3Gb/s RAID 5 /4, 6Gb/s /4, VGA+DVI+HDMI, USB 3.0 /4, HDA, GbLAN, FW /2, ATX, Retail

MUSHKIN, 16GB (4 x 4GB) Redline PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL7 (7-9-8-24) 1.65V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC

EVGA, GeForce® GTX 570 HD (AR) 732MHz, 256080MB GDDR5 3800MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, 2x DVI+HDMI+DP, Retail

OCZ, 120GB Vertex 3 SSD, MLC SandForce SF-2281, 550/500 MB/s, 2.5-Inch, SATA 6 Gb/s, Retail

SEAGATE, 3TB Barracuda® XT, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB cache

SEAGATE, 3TB Barracuda® XT, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB cache

RAID, RAID 0 (striping), min 2 hard drives required

PIONEER, BDR-206DBKS Black 12x/16x/40x BD/DVD/CD Blu-ray Disc™ DVD Burner, SATA, w/ Software, OEM

CORSAIR, Graphite 600T Black Mid-Tower Computer Case, ATX, No PSU, Steel/Plastic

CORSAIR, TX750 V2 Power Supply 750W, 80 PLUS® Bronze, 24-pin ATX12V v2.31 EPS12V 2.92, 4x 8/6-pin PCIe

MICROSOFT, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Edition w/ SP1, OEM

 

[af22]

i have windows server 2008R2 with a 4x2TB windows raid 5 array, 5.31TB usable. No problems

 

[drescherjm]

Use GPT partitions instead of MBR.

 

[Batty_H]

And that is partitioned as one drive letter?

 

[Batty_H]

Yes, the GPT partitions seem to be the solution, so why won't AVADirect simply do that for me? They must be aware of that, building as many systems as they do.

In their words exactly: "The limitation has nothing to do with the BIOS, and everything to do with the Windows NTFS file system; it will not allow partitions over 2TB in size, hence why we must partition the RAID 0 volume in one 2TB and another 1TB."

 

[Batty_H]

Doing some quick Googling on this topic, it seems quite possible to have Windows NTFS partitions larger than 2TB, AVADirect seems just wrong on this, I wonder if that is truly the case or if there is some "gotcha" Catch-22 type thing that prevents larger partitions in practice.

According to this, GPT partitions and a cluster size of 4096 allows a 16TB partition:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/...anding-the-2-tb-limit-in-windows-storage.aspx

 

[drescherjm]

AVADirect seems just wrong on this

They probably don't want to explain how to get around the limitations of MBR. > 2TB ntfs partitions are no problem otherwise corporations would all be forced to use linux ...

 

[Batty_H]

Someone pointed out to me another issue using the Intel RAID controller for drives >2TB discussed here: http://communities.intel.com/thread/22830

Since my machine spec was ASUS Z68-based and brand new, this issue is hopefully resolved as well.

 

[wkearney99]

In their words exactly: "The limitation has nothing to do with the BIOS, and everything to do with the Windows NTFS file system; it will not allow partitions over 2TB in size, hence why we must partition the RAID 0 volume in one 2TB and another 1TB."

Which is totally and completely WRONG.

What might limit things is the RAID controller or the BIOS, but NTFS is most certainly not limited to 2TB. I have run into trouble with motherboard RAID setups that can't deal with a greater than 2TB volume. This is a defect/limitation in the RAID setup, not NTFS.

I've got several machines with NTFS single volume 6TB RAID5 arrays, and one with a 12TB RAID4. And one other machine that boots via UEFI straight into a 4TB RAID10 array.