If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
what is the largest hard drive that WindowsXP can "see"?
I'm thinking of getting another external usb-driven hard drive to use
for various back-up imaging and general storage. I have 32 bit XP. I know it can see 500gig, can it see 1 terrabyte? |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
what is the largest hard drive that WindowsXP can "see"?
On 13/11/2011 12:56 AM, John B. Smith wrote:
I'm thinking of getting another external usb-driven hard drive to use for various back-up imaging and general storage. I have 32 bit XP. I know it can see 500gig, can it see 1 terrabyte? Mine has no trouble with 2 TB... -- Krypsis |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
what is the largest hard drive that WindowsXP can "see"?
John B. Smith wrote:
I'm thinking of getting another external usb-driven hard drive to use for various back-up imaging and general storage. I have 32 bit XP. I know it can see 500gig, can it see 1 terrabyte? There is a difference between data and boot. And since this is USB, this tells my your drive is most likely to be used for data. There are some OSes that can boot from USB storage, but WinXP isn't one of the easier candidates (there is a hack for it). What you're looking for, is an article on GPT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table MBR handles up to 2.2TB. GPT handles larger than that. The table in that article, shows things that can actually boot from GPT, and "Windows 7 x86-64 Boot from GPT on EFI" is supposed to be able to boot from GPT. That would take a relatively modern motherboard, and new OS install. ******* Note - any time you commission a disk subsystem, where the storages crosses some imaginary boundary, it pays to test to see whether the boundary can be crossed safely. And whether the test file(s) stored on the volume, are in fact intact. On a 2.2TB+ volume, that could take virtually forever :-) I think single disks are for sale now, up to 4TB in size. To give an example of the importance of this, somebody set up a large RAID, using TB sized disks, and managed to configure it to go past the 2.2TB mark. He was transferring music files or movies or something, and suddenly the file system corrupted. He was wondering whether he could get the files back or not. That's the kind of situation you want to avoid, and it's better to use throw-away test data or artificial test means, to check that the thing is working properly. If you bought a 1TB or 2TB disk, there would be no need to do any boundary testing. With a 3TB or 4TB or some large RAID array of multiple disks, then testing is a good idea. It takes forever to file, forever to do maintenance on large volumes like that. If the speed had scaled with the capacity, it wouldn't have been quite so bad. To make large files, Microsoft has a utility called FSUTIL, but the problem with it, is it creates sparse files on NTFS file systems. Which are useless for verifying hardware based problems (say, 48 bit LBA test case). That leaves "dd" as the only thing handy for creating a large file (short of doing copy and paste type testing, which I've done, but it sucks due to the manual labor part of it). http://www.chrysocome.net/dd That's a command line program. This, for example, would make a single test file on an NTFS file system, that comes right up to the edge of 2.2TB. (No, I haven't tested something this big works - this is how I'd go about my test approach.) dd.exe if=/dev/random of=G:\mybigtestfile.bin bs=1048576 count=2097152 And this would be sliding past that limit, by a 1MB block. Block size is in bytes, and 1048576 is 1MB. Instead of /dev/random you can use /dev/zero to fill the file with zeros, but that's not quite as exciting. G: is my new big disk partition, filling the whole disk. dd.exe if=/dev/random of=G:\mybigtestfile.bin bs=1048576 count=2097153 1048576 * 2097152 = 2,199,023,255,552 and that's where the "2.2TB" comes from. Stated in another unit of measure, power_of_two based, that would be "2TiB". "2.2TB" is how the disk manufacturers measure things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tebibyte So if you stick with a 1TB or 2TB disk, use NTFS, there really isn't anything to worry about. Just the usual S.M.A.R.T statistics check on the disk, and maybe some reading and writing to flush out the "factory squirrels" from the drive. ******* The last 500GB drive I bought, worked like a pig for several months, before the performance straightened out. What I found helped it, was using free HDTune 2.5.5, and doing an end to end bad block scan. The performance curve looks reasonable. The drive is likely using 4KB sectors inside, with 512 byte emulation by the drive controller (which means, 4KB alignment, can help performance). That's an ugly topic all of its own. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_format http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whit...nology_faq.pdf That change was made for the manufacturer's gain, and has nothing to do with making user's lives easier. The fact they can force the controller to fix a problem they created themselves, is just gee-whiz stuff :-( The sad part, is many drives contain no markings or marketing information pertaining to the usage of 4KB internally, or the usage of emulation to fix the 4KB mess when used with an older OS. Lots of fun reading to do, and generally, forced on you when you notice R/W performance is in the toilet. "AcronisAlignTool_s_e_2_0_107.exe" http://support.wdc.com/product/downloadsw.asp?sid=128 http://support.wdc.com/download/note...ease_Notes.pdf The original announcement of 4KB sectors is here, but some of the emulation crap, seemed to be added after the fact. An "improvement" if you will. http://www.anandtech.com/show/2888 Paul |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
what is the largest hard drive that WindowsXP can "see"?
On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 08:56:26 -0500, John B. Smith
put finger to keyboard and composed: I'm thinking of getting another external usb-driven hard drive to use for various back-up imaging and general storage. I have 32 bit XP. I know it can see 500gig, can it see 1 terrabyte? Seagate's 3TB GoFlex and WD's 3TB My Book are both plug-in compatible with Windows XP. This is because the USB-SATA bridge chip is configured for 4KB LBAs rather than 512 bytes. Therefore the theoretical maximum size for Windows XP would be 16TiB when using an MBR partition. The 512-byte LBA limit would be 2TiB. - Franc Zabkar -- Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email. |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
what is the largest hard drive that WindowsXP can "see"?
Internally for data, 2TB
External (USB), 3TB "John B. Smith" wrote in message ... I'm thinking of getting another external usb-driven hard drive to use for various back-up imaging and general storage. I have 32 bit XP. I know it can see 500gig, can it see 1 terrabyte? |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
what is the largest hard drive that WindowsXP can "see"?
On Nov 13, 6:39 pm, "TimDrouillard" wrote:
Internally for data, 2TB External (USB), 3TB "John B. Smith" wrote in messagenews:0jusb79r7bierpr1q2ttfintv2ojkct9op@4ax .com... I'm thinking of getting another external usb-driven hard drive to use for various back-up imaging and general storage. I have 32 bit XP. I know it can see 500gig, can it see 1 terrabyte? That's dependent on the docking station or whatever USB gizzmo you're sticking one into. I've a couple Rosewill, one unit free w/ a HD purchase and another for $10, that will variously see/are rated up to 1.5T. Seems I might have been doing weird stuff with pre-formating them with a likes of Easeus before putting them into an ASUS MB BIOS that definitely didn't support that large a drive. Or something. The ASUS MB has went since practically belly up. Not sure, either, would tend to doubt offhand, if I've actually a 2G in a stack of 3 or 4 1+T, large "GREEN" drives. Thermaltake, btw, is dumping their USB2 docking stations in front of the USB3 onslaught after a suitable course of rebate hoops for jumping through. Geez, hope they don't get stuck with any leftover extras that cost $50 at the time I got my Rosewills. Saw the Thermaltakes for $10 on sale yesterday or today, not for sure where but possibly on Newegg. They'll be spec'd out for a drive-size range, anyway, in their lit. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
USB bootable maker: Diff between "HP Drive Key Boot Utility" and "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool"? | Jason Stacy | Storage (alternative) | 1 | April 21st 09 01:14 AM |
WinExplorer shows no "Used space/Free space" in properties for USB stick drive ? "Optimized for quick removal" error? | Joe deAngelo | Storage (alternative) | 0 | January 18th 08 01:28 PM |
"Bird Chirping" Noise Hard drive, seagate only? | Bob Brown INC. | Homebuilt PC's | 13 | May 15th 07 05:49 PM |
QMS 2300 "hard drive kit" = a regular IDE HD? | [email protected] | Printers | 2 | February 7th 06 12:50 AM |
Does anybody know what jumper setting "cable select" does for a hard drive? | Body | Homebuilt PC's | 9 | February 2nd 06 02:41 AM |