How large arrays can Windows handle?

D

Damodred

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 27, 2007
Messages
171
Hello

I'm looking at expanding my Fileserver in the signature a bit as I'm running out of storage. Do anyone know if there are any limitations in the filesystem or in Windows or anywhere else, that could stop me from making it worth the time? Right now it is 8x300gb x2 in raid5 plus 2x300gb in raid0. I'm looking at doubling the amount of storage, going from my 300gb disks to 500gb disks.

THanks in advance :)
Regards
 
2 Tb is the limit you can go, at least with Windows Server 2003 Enterprise and a 3ware 9500s Sata card. However you can convert the disk to GPT format and it can be extended to 16 Tb, or more can't remember the limit.

My only concern about going GPT is that is says you need a 64 bit cpu for this?? :confused: Otherwise I would dump my array and convert it to GPT to get my 2.5 TB partition up and running. Which sucks that you have to empty the array before converting it. :( :mad:
 
I have a 5TB GPT array and it is on Server 2003 32-bit. The only annoyance I have found with GPT partitions is that there aren't as many tools that support working with them (particularly resizing them.) GParted is the only one I found so far.
 
I knew it was something :)
Right now my arrays are at a size of 1947gb which would explain why I didnt know about the sizelimit at 2tb. Close tho. I have almost decided to start with eight 500gb disks from Hitachi and then add another array with another five 500gb disks plus three 300gb disks and running a raid5 array on these and then create a raid0 volume on the empty room on the 500gb disks.

Any thoughts or concerns about this? Am I missing something somewhere and so on?

Regards


Edit:

After reading up on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table, it seems like GPT is the way to go. My concern is this:

Some 32-bit OSes which cannot read GPT disks nevertheless recognize this ID and present the disk as an inaccessible GPT disk.
Click to expand...

Which OSes are these?
 
well I am not sure about your question but good god that is a lot of storage. what do you do w/ it?
 
I'm using it as a fileserver (well duh), holding my music and movie collection. 700gb is only music in lossless format and like 400gb is mp3. I'm a collector of bootlegs from especially Metallica and Bruce Springsteen and they have done quite a few gigs over the years :)

A few years back I got the idea of taking backups of my dvd- collection and now I have quite a few 720p/1080p movies as well. The imagequality is also alot better streaming them from the network onto the htpc compared with using my dvd- player or my dvd-burner. Seeing as the larger 1080p movies takes up over 30gb, its very easy to understand that 500gb fills up fast. Plus I plan for the future :)
 
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