Max NTFS Disk Partition

[Kim]

Good day all,
I have looked on the discussion groups and fear I may just be dumber than
the average bear, but I was unable to locate this information. What is the
maximum NTFS disk partition allowed by Windows XP Pro SP3?

 

[DL]

2TB

 

[Kim]

Thanks, Kim
--

2TB

Good day all,
I have looked on the discussion groups and fear I may just be dumber than
the average bear, but I was unable to locate this information. What is
the
maximum NTFS disk partition allowed by Windows XP Pro SP3?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I have looked on the discussion groups and fear I may just be dumber than
the average bear, but I was unable to locate this information. What is
the
maximum NTFS disk partition allowed by Windows XP Pro SP3?

You received and accepted an answer - want to know how to get it?

Now is a great time to point you to one of the easiest ways to find
information on problems you may be having and solutions others have found:

Search using Google!
http://www.google.com/
(How-to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/basics.html )

Using your words...
http://www.google.com/search?q=maximum+NTFS+disk+partition+allowed+by+Windows+XP+Pro+SP3

The first hit - reading the answers.

 

[JS]

Drives have now reached 2TB in size which
is the limit for an XP NTFS partition.

See: http://smallvoid.com/article/cluster-hard-disk-partition.html

Windows 7 does not have this limitation.

 

[John John - MVP]

That is a bit deceiving, the 2TB size limit is an MBR (Basic) disk limit
imposed by the 32-bit width of the partition table, it isn't an NTFS
thing at all. Dynamic volumes are not subject to this size 2TB limit.

John

 

[JS]

Do you install XP on Dynamic Volumes as a regular habit?
By the way "NTFS" isn't exactly New Technology these days.
And mounting Volumes pre-dates Windows.

 

[John John - MVP]

The OP made no mention of installing Windows, the question was:

"What is the maximum NTFS disk partition allowed by Windows XP Pro SP3?"

Installing Windows on dynamic volumes may not be a very common thing to
do (and if it were it would have to be on a "retained" dynamic disk so
the 2TB size limit would still apply) but using dynamic volumes for data
storage is something that is often done. NTFS dates from the early
1990's and while it isn't "New Technology" that is what you get if you
are running Windows XP and as far as I know that is also what you will
get with Windows 7. There was a mention when Vista was being developed
that a new file system was in the works for it but in the end Vista
shipped with the same NTFS version as Windows XP and Server 2003.
Server 2008 uses the same NTFS version so I don't expect a new version
for Windows 7, but I don't know so that is a guess. The difference is
that the newer Vista and Windows 7 can handle GPT disks which aren't
constrained by the 32-bit partition table, the partition on these disks
can be larger than 2 terabytes, this has nothing to do with NTFS per se.
Windows XP 32-bit cannot handle GPT disks but the 64-bit version can.
Server 2003 32-bits uses the same NTFS file system as Windows XP
32-bit but it can handle GPT disks. It has nothing to do with NTFS, I
believe it has more to do with the disk.sys driver lacking GPT support
on Windows XP 32-bit.

John

 

[JS]

Well, I can see the next question coming down the road for XP:
"I just bought this 4TB hard drive and XP only reports 2TB" ;-)

 

[John John - MVP]

Maybe (or probably?) by then third party add-on controllers might be
able to address the problem.

John

 

[JS]

Is that a "Promise" in technology ;-)