3TB external USB HDD... will it work with WinXP machine?

[Muse]

I've seen some info about GPT, not MBR formatting with these drives, that you need Windows 7 to get 3TB out of them. Does this apply to my new Western Digital 3TB Elements external HD [Part number: WDBAAU0030HBK-01]? Or does the enclosure it comes in take care of things, allowing Windows XP to access the drive OK?

Related question: I just ordered a Rosewill RX-358 V2 BLK (Black) 3.5" SATA to USB & eSATA Ext. Enclosure w/Int.80mm fan. I did this because I had intermittent trouble yesterday getting one of my Western Digital 2TB Elements external HD's to work. Reviews I've seen suggest that the WD Elements enclosures, with their poor heat dissipation properties, can cause early drive failure (and one post, at Newegg, said that it's the enclosures' circuit board that most often is the component failing). I figure I need an alternative enclosure (at least one) to test with when I have difficulties. Can I use that Rosewill enclosure with the 3TB HD on a Windows XP machine?

 

[fzabkar]

WD's 3TB My Book enclosures are configured with 4KB LBAs by default. This allows them to circumvent the 2TiB MBR limit of Windows XP.

 

[Muse]

WD's 3TB My Book enclosures are configured with 4KB LBAs by default. This allows them to circumvent the 2TiB MBR limit of Windows XP.

OK, thanks. I suppose this holds true also for their 3TB Elements USB drives.

I'm wondering if it would work OK if I put it in the Rosewill enclosure.

My plan ATM is to probably open the WD Elements case (I'm experienced at this after having had 5-6 Elements drives!!), and (for the first time) drilling some big old holes in the plastic case, not enough to compromise the strength of the case (I hope), and then put HD back in the case and put the case in a device I created to keep my La Crosse BC-900 AA/AAA battery charger cool. That charger was notorious for melt downs! :ninja: People over in the Candlepower Forums told me that was a bad idea and could cause the charger to miss termination. The gismo I created with thin sheet metal has a flat bed and an 80mm fan over where the charger goes. I've kept the charger in the gismo but stopped powering the fan. One of the WD Elements cases will fit in there very nicely. The fan, when powered, rotates at a nice slow speed, so it's silent (5 volts instead of 12 volts). I figure this should greatly extend the life expectancy of the 3TB HD and/or enclosure. My intention is to have it on 24/7, attached to my server machine and supplying data to my networked machines. Don't know if I'll be comfortable leaving the spin down feature or will flash to the firmware that turns it off. Depends on how bothersome that spin down is, to be determined. Having the spin down in effect should, presumably, also help extend the life expectancy of the drive.

 

[fzabkar]

OK, thanks. I suppose this holds true also for their 3TB Elements USB drives.

I'm wondering if it would work OK if I put it in the Rosewill enclosure.

If the Rosewill enclosure is configured with 512-byte LBAs, then you won't have access to your files. At best you will see a single partition with a capacity of 3/8 TB. You would then need to repartition your drive in GPT mode and reformat it. Of course this would be data destructive.

 

[Cerb]

The big vendor drives are using 4K LBAs and that the USB MSC spec allows 4K device sectors, to allow 32-bit >2TB partitions, but this makes the partitions nominally incompatible with anything, if removed from the enclosure (data recovery tools can often figure it out, though). With any old enclosure, unless someone has confirmed it working as such, all bets are off, and I certainly wouldn't expect it to work (actually, in general, I would want it not to work, in that I would prefer it just being a USB/ATA bridge, which would preclude that). However, it will definitely work as a MBR-partitioned 2TB drive, if you're OK with wasting 7-800GBs .

 

[Dufus]

However, it will definitely work as a MBR-partitioned 2TB drive, if you're OK with wasting 7-800GBs

Why not use a second partition?

 

[Anonemous]

3TB should be fine on an xp machine. /uses 3TB element drives connected to an xp file/media server

 

[jkauff]

WD formatting utility that's included on the drive gives you the choice of factory format or XP format. Based on the posts above, I would expect "factory" to be GPT and "XP" to be the special formatting required for XP to see the full 3TB.

 

[Cerb]

Why not use a second partition?

Because if that is allowed, it generally will result in overwriting the low LBAs of the first partition, as the registers silently roll over.

The funky Seagate and WD external HDDs are a surer way to have more space.