> 2TB volume support under windows 2000

[naveed]

Does Windows 2000 or 2003 supports a volume of >2TB?
Does it require a special driver?
Does it require anything to change in registry?

I have infortrend external storage which works fine with
3TB under Linux but Windows does not show any volume.
Less than 2TB volume is seen by Windows.

Any support is really apprecaited.

Naveed.

 

[Pat [MSFT]]

You can create volumes greater than 2TB if:
1) The driver supports it (you would need to get with the HW vendor for
that).
2) Only as a dynamic disk

Basic disks are limited to 2TB.

Alternatively, you can create 1TB+2TB volumes and link them for the 3TB
(this technique works up to 64TB).

Pat

 

[Joep]

From MS website: "The NTFS file system that powers Windows Storage Server
2003 has no limits (over four billion tested) in terms of the number of
files on a volume and each NTFS volume can be up to 256 terabytes in size
(tested)."

 

[Jeff Goldner [MS]]

There are two issues:
1) the SCSI SBC command set - which is used regardless of interconnect on
Windows - only defined 32-bit block numbers. All versions of Windows (to the
present) only use 32-bit block numbers. With a 512 byte block, that gives
you 2TB. This is independent of dynamic or basic disks. You can combine
dynamic disks to arrive at a larger VOLUME: up to 32 dynamic disks can be
combined giving you 64TB (striping) or 62TB (stripe with parity - aka
RAID5). NTFS could support up to 256TB but not using the inbox volume
manager.

2) the MBR partition format also restricts you to 32-bit block numbers, so
in order to exceed 2TB single LUNs on Windows, you would need to use GPT
instead.

The newly approved SBC-2 specification contains commands that use 64-bit
block numbers. Expect a public announcement about support for this in the
near future.

 

[Joep]

There are two issues:
1) the SCSI SBC command set - which is used regardless of interconnect on
Windows - only defined 32-bit block numbers. All versions of Windows (to the
present) only use 32-bit block numbers. With a 512 byte block, that gives
you 2TB. This is independent of dynamic or basic disks. You can combine
dynamic disks to arrive at a larger VOLUME: up to 32 dynamic disks can be
combined giving you 64TB (striping) or 62TB (stripe with parity - aka
RAID5). NTFS could support up to 256TB but not using the inbox volume
manager.

2) the MBR partition format also restricts you to 32-bit block numbers, so
in order to exceed 2TB single LUNs on Windows, you would need to use GPT
instead.

The newly approved SBC-2 specification contains commands that use 64-bit
block numbers. Expect a public announcement about support for this in the
near future.

Haven't got a clue what you're on about, and don't care either. I was just
trying to help OP with something I found at the MS website. If you are as
well, please reply to OP instead.