HDD limits: USB external vs internal

[John B.]

I've done several seaches on the web looking for the answer to my USB
question, but I can't seem to locate it for some reason.

I'm using W2k one machine and WXP on another, both formatted to NTFS. One
machine has a built-in USB2 port, the other was upgraded with a PCI USB2
card. One machine has an approximate 120gb limit on any internal HDDs that
are installed before the drive needs to be partitioned into smaller drives.
The other machine has an 80gb limit before any drive needs to be
partitioned.

My questions surround the limits of installing an external USB2 HDD.

1.) If I installed another HDD internally that was 250gb, I would have to
partition the drive to fit the 120gb limit (120gb, 120gb, and 10gb). If I
installed an external USB2 HDD on either machine that was 250gb, would it
have to be partitioned downward too, or does using USB2 allow it to at
250gb? Does W2k versus WXP have any influence over these USB limits?

2.) If USB2 allows the higher capacity to remain at it's single partitioned
state, what is suppose to be the maximum limit HDD that a USB2 can utilize
at this time? Can this limit be by-passed if the large HDD is partitioned
downward into sections that match it's limit?

 

[Alien Zord]

I'm using W2k one machine and WXP on another, both formatted to NTFS. One
machine has a built-in USB2 port, the other was upgraded with a PCI USB2
card. One machine has an approximate 120gb limit on any internal HDDs that
are installed before the drive needs to be partitioned into smaller drives.
The other machine has an 80gb limit before any drive needs to be
partitioned.

The ATA limits are 8 GB for 24 bit LBA and 144115 TB for 48 bit LBA.
However, BIOS may have a limit of 32 GB or 137 GB.
Win2k itself has a limit of 137 GB unless you hack the registry:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305098
WinXP does not have such a limit.
AFAIK USB2.0 supports 32 bit addressing which would imply 2199 GB hdd limit
(in theory, I haven't tested it yet ).

 

[John B.]

AFAIK USB2.0 supports 32 bit addressing which would imply 2199 GB hdd

limit

I'll take that as a yes in regards to my USB2 accessing a larger than normal
HDD without a need to partition into smaller chunks. Thanks!