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#1
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Safe to format 4TB to NTFS
I have used EaseUS Partition Master 11.9 to format my WD Green to the
NTFS format, is this safe to do (safe as in drive not breaking down, and losing data) or should i format to the GPT format? Jim |
#2
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Safe to format 4TB to NTFS
Jim wrote:
I have used EaseUS Partition Master 11.9 to format my WD Green to the NTFS format, is this safe to do (safe as in drive not breaking down, and losing data) or should i format to the GPT format? Jim There is no GPT *file* format. If you want to use a partition then decide on what *file system* you want inside of it, like NTFS. GPT is the *partitioning scheme*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table |
#3
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Safe to format 4TB to NTFS
On 16/10/2016 23:42, VanguardLH wrote:
Jim wrote: I have used EaseUS Partition Master 11.9 to format my WD Green to the NTFS format, is this safe to do (safe as in drive not breaking down, and losing data) or should i format to the GPT format? Jim There is no GPT *file* format. If you want to use a partition then decide on what *file system* you want inside of it, like NTFS. GPT is the *partitioning scheme*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table In that case how does it fit when wiki says "Because partition tables on master boot record (MBR) disks support only partition sizes up to 2 TB, dynamic or GPT volumes must be used to create NTFS volumes over 2 TB" My boot drives are small ssd's running mbr and these bigger 4TB drives are only for media storage or have i got the wrong end of the stick (not unusual i know) Jim |
#4
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Safe to format 4TB to NTFS
On 17/10/2016 00:57, Jim wrote:
On 16/10/2016 23:42, VanguardLH wrote: Jim wrote: I have used EaseUS Partition Master 11.9 to format my WD Green to the NTFS format, is this safe to do (safe as in drive not breaking down, and losing data) or should i format to the GPT format? Jim There is no GPT *file* format. If you want to use a partition then decide on what *file system* you want inside of it, like NTFS. GPT is the *partitioning scheme*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table In that case how does it fit when wiki says "Because partition tables on master boot record (MBR) disks support only partition sizes up to 2 TB, dynamic or GPT volumes must be used to create NTFS volumes over 2 TB" My boot drives are small ssd's running mbr and these bigger 4TB drives are only for media storage or have i got the wrong end of the stick (not unusual i know) Jim Now i'm confused ( According to EaseUS it's saying "File System is NTFS" "Disk Type is GPT" So am i right in thinking then that anything BELOW 2TB will be FAT32/NTFS/ExFAT etc that being the "File System" and anything above 2TB CAN be formatted to NTFS as well but will be GPT because it's over 2 TB? |
#5
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Safe to format 4TB to NTFS
Jim wrote:
On 16/10/2016 23:42, VanguardLH wrote: Jim wrote: I have used EaseUS Partition Master 11.9 to format my WD Green to the NTFS format, is this safe to do (safe as in drive not breaking down, and losing data) or should i format to the GPT format? Jim There is no GPT *file* format. If you want to use a partition then decide on what *file system* you want inside of it, like NTFS. GPT is the *partitioning scheme*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table In that case how does it fit when wiki says "Because partition tables on master boot record (MBR) disks support only partition sizes up to 2 TB, dynamic or GPT volumes must be used to create NTFS volumes over 2 TB" My boot drives are small ssd's running mbr and these bigger 4TB drives are only for media storage or have i got the wrong end of the stick (not unusual i know) Under MBA, the partition table has 4 partition records. Each partition record is 16 bytes long, or 128 bits long. No, you don't get to address 2^128 - 1 sectors (of 512 bytes each). Some of those bytes are for purposes other than addressing. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record#PTE Your HDD can have a total capacity far exceeding what is addressable by the MBR. When you access a file in the file system (e.g., NTFS), it still must get translated to a sector on the HDD. So you hit the limitation of partition size by the MBR's partition records before you hit the max file system's file size. NTFS has a theoretically maximum file (not partition) size of 16 exabytes you can't find an HDD/SDD anywhere near that size plus Windows itself places limites on volumes. It looks like you don't know what are dynamic volumes or the difference between BIOS and UEFI as the firmware in the mobo. http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm (Those are max file sizes by the file system, not max partition sizes.) I'm pretty sure that if you use Easeus Partition Master to create a partition larger than 2 TB that it will automatically attempt to create it as a GPT partition - and that is BEFORE it even starts the format of the partition to lay down a file system. You have to create the partition BEFORE you can lay down a file system inside of it. However, going beyond 2TB for partition size depends on your hardware's firmware. BIOS only supports MBR. UEFI allows the allocation of GPT partitions. If you want GPT partitions, your computer must use UEFI, not the old MBR BIOS. That is, if you want to leave MBR and use GPT then you need to leave BIOS and have EFI-compliant hardware. You can create GPT partitions under UEFI. You cannot create GPT partitions with MBR BIOS. You never identified the make and model of the motherboard for anyone else to know if it only supports the old BIOS model or the newer UEFI model. For GPT partitions, you'll need your mobo hardware to support UEFI. GPT = GUID Partition Table, and GUIDs are definable only in UEFI. GPT is part of the UEFI specification. |
#6
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Safe to format 4TB to NTFS
On 17/10/2016 01:50, VanguardLH wrote:
Jim wrote: On 16/10/2016 23:42, VanguardLH wrote: Jim wrote: I have used EaseUS Partition Master 11.9 to format my WD Green to the NTFS format, is this safe to do (safe as in drive not breaking down, and losing data) or should i format to the GPT format? Jim There is no GPT *file* format. If you want to use a partition then decide on what *file system* you want inside of it, like NTFS. GPT is the *partitioning scheme*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table In that case how does it fit when wiki says "Because partition tables on master boot record (MBR) disks support only partition sizes up to 2 TB, dynamic or GPT volumes must be used to create NTFS volumes over 2 TB" My boot drives are small ssd's running mbr and these bigger 4TB drives are only for media storage or have i got the wrong end of the stick (not unusual i know) Under MBA, the partition table has 4 partition records. Each partition record is 16 bytes long, or 128 bits long. No, you don't get to address 2^128 - 1 sectors (of 512 bytes each). Some of those bytes are for purposes other than addressing. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record#PTE Your HDD can have a total capacity far exceeding what is addressable by the MBR. When you access a file in the file system (e.g., NTFS), it still must get translated to a sector on the HDD. So you hit the limitation of partition size by the MBR's partition records before you hit the max file system's file size. NTFS has a theoretically maximum file (not partition) size of 16 exabytes you can't find an HDD/SDD anywhere near that size plus Windows itself places limites on volumes. It looks like you don't know what are dynamic volumes or the difference between BIOS and UEFI as the firmware in the mobo. http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm (Those are max file sizes by the file system, not max partition sizes.) I'm pretty sure that if you use Easeus Partition Master to create a partition larger than 2 TB that it will automatically attempt to create it as a GPT partition - and that is BEFORE it even starts the format of the partition to lay down a file system. You have to create the partition BEFORE you can lay down a file system inside of it. However, going beyond 2TB for partition size depends on your hardware's firmware. BIOS only supports MBR. UEFI allows the allocation of GPT partitions. If you want GPT partitions, your computer must use UEFI, not the old MBR BIOS. That is, if you want to leave MBR and use GPT then you need to leave BIOS and have EFI-compliant hardware. You can create GPT partitions under UEFI. You cannot create GPT partitions with MBR BIOS. You never identified the make and model of the motherboard for anyone else to know if it only supports the old BIOS model or the newer UEFI model. For GPT partitions, you'll need your mobo hardware to support UEFI. GPT = GUID Partition Table, and GUIDs are definable only in UEFI. GPT is part of the UEFI specification. My motherboard is an Asus Z87 Deluxe https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z87DELUXE/ which if i remember rightly can run the newer UEFI BIOS. I clearly need to do more reading on this one to understand things, sure i can get it too work easly enough but i'd like to know more about it so good few hours ahead reading for me, of to bed now as it's 3.30am local (London) time Jim |
#7
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Safe to format 4TB to NTFS
On 10/16/2016 5:14 PM, Jim wrote:
I have used EaseUS Partition Master 11.9 to format my WD Green to the NTFS format, is this safe to do (safe as in drive not breaking down, and losing data) or should i format to the GPT format? Jim GPT and MBR are disk partitioning systems. NTFS is a partition type. You can have an NTFS partition type on either a GPT or MBR disk. GPT is the preferred disk partitioning system since it does not have the limitations of a lesser number of partitions that MBR has, nor does it have the limitations of the lesser partition sizes that MBR has. Some boot systems ( BIOSs and/or boot managers ) and operating systems have limitations as to booting to a partition on a GPT drive. In general nearly all modern OSs and modern computers can boot from GPT drives but some older OSs and/or computers may not be able to do so. |
#8
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Safe to format 4TB to NTFS
On 10/16/2016 5:14 PM, Jim wrote:
I have used EaseUS Partition Master 11.9 to format my WD Green to the NTFS format, is this safe to do (safe as in drive not breaking down, and losing data) or should i format to the GPT format? The partitioning scheme is either GPT or MBR. The filesystem format is anything you want, that can work over 4TB, of which NTFS is one of the valid choices. I think another valid choice would be ExFAT, and any of the Linux filesystems too (at least under Windows 10 Anniversary Update). Yousuf Khan |
#9
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Safe to format 4TB to NTFS
Jim wrote:
On 17/10/2016 01:50, VanguardLH wrote: Jim wrote: On 16/10/2016 23:42, VanguardLH wrote: Jim wrote: I have used EaseUS Partition Master 11.9 to format my WD Green to the NTFS format, is this safe to do (safe as in drive not breaking down, and losing data) or should i format to the GPT format? Jim There is no GPT *file* format. If you want to use a partition then decide on what *file system* you want inside of it, like NTFS. GPT is the *partitioning scheme*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table In that case how does it fit when wiki says "Because partition tables on master boot record (MBR) disks support only partition sizes up to 2 TB, dynamic or GPT volumes must be used to create NTFS volumes over 2 TB" My boot drives are small ssd's running mbr and these bigger 4TB drives are only for media storage or have i got the wrong end of the stick (not unusual i know) Under MBA, the partition table has 4 partition records. Each partition record is 16 bytes long, or 128 bits long. No, you don't get to address 2^128 - 1 sectors (of 512 bytes each). Some of those bytes are for purposes other than addressing. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record#PTE Your HDD can have a total capacity far exceeding what is addressable by the MBR. When you access a file in the file system (e.g., NTFS), it still must get translated to a sector on the HDD. So you hit the limitation of partition size by the MBR's partition records before you hit the max file system's file size. NTFS has a theoretically maximum file (not partition) size of 16 exabytes you can't find an HDD/SDD anywhere near that size plus Windows itself places limites on volumes. It looks like you don't know what are dynamic volumes or the difference between BIOS and UEFI as the firmware in the mobo. http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm (Those are max file sizes by the file system, not max partition sizes.) I'm pretty sure that if you use Easeus Partition Master to create a partition larger than 2 TB that it will automatically attempt to create it as a GPT partition - and that is BEFORE it even starts the format of the partition to lay down a file system. You have to create the partition BEFORE you can lay down a file system inside of it. However, going beyond 2TB for partition size depends on your hardware's firmware. BIOS only supports MBR. UEFI allows the allocation of GPT partitions. If you want GPT partitions, your computer must use UEFI, not the old MBR BIOS. That is, if you want to leave MBR and use GPT then you need to leave BIOS and have EFI-compliant hardware. You can create GPT partitions under UEFI. You cannot create GPT partitions with MBR BIOS. You never identified the make and model of the motherboard for anyone else to know if it only supports the old BIOS model or the newer UEFI model. For GPT partitions, you'll need your mobo hardware to support UEFI. GPT = GUID Partition Table, and GUIDs are definable only in UEFI. GPT is part of the UEFI specification. My motherboard is an Asus Z87 Deluxe https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z87DELUXE/ which if i remember rightly can run the newer UEFI BIOS. I clearly need to do more reading on this one to understand things, sure i can get it too work easly enough but i'd like to know more about it so good few hours ahead reading for me, of to bed now as it's 3.30am local (London) time That URL says that mobo supports UEFI. So you must have partitioned the disk using the older MBR scheme, like in an older computer and then migrated the disk to the Asus mobo setup. UEFI includes the old MBR scheme for backwards compatibility. I've never researched the consequences of using MBR with its partition table with maximum of 4 partition records and 2TB limits to convert to a UEFI record for a GPT partition. The Easeus utility might have a conversion to go from MBR to GPT. Change a Master Boot Record Disk into a GUID Partition Table Disk https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/...(v=ws.11).aspx Free Convert MBR to GPT Without Data Loss http://www.easeus.com/partition-mana...data-loss.html (says their Partition Master can do it) Obviously you should save partition backup images before committing this major surgery on the structure of the partition(s). |
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