Where is the 2TB boot limit located?

[ZeGermans]

Alright, so 1TB HD's are coming pretty soon, and it's only a matter of time until having a raid array larger than 2TB isn't a far fetched idea. I enjoy an array that's 1920GB, split into a 150GB boot volume and the rest for storage. I boot off of it because I enjoy using the 500MB/s read/write performance for games loads, etc. Anyways, eventually I want to expand the array when I run out of space, which probably won't happen any time soon. Now, I know that no matter how you partition it, you can't boot off of an array larger than 2TB. It just doesn't happen. So I'm wondering, is limit rooted in the BIOS or the OS? I want to know so that I know what to look out for when that time does arrive.

 

[Genx87]

Which OS and which RAID card are you using?

 

[ForumMaster]

as Genx87 said, with what OS? many servers today have over 2TB of storage and perform just fine.

 

[mrbill14]

This past year we installed a HP MSA (a shell to install multiple drives in).

It is fiber connected and has 15 (300 GB) drives. Which in RAID 5 territory comes out to be over 3 GB of storage. Unforunately, we couldn't get a single 3 GB of hard drive space because of the limitation you speak of. (Ended up with a 2 GB container - D: - and another 1 GB container - E.

The HP Gurus said that it was a SCSI limitation (which is how the OS - Windows 2003 - sees the enclosure, even though it's fiber connected).

HP said to see anything above 2 GB requires virtualization (read, big money!) of some sort.


I believe the limitation is similar to the 130 GB limitation of the 32-bit (vs. the 48-bit) LBA addressing (for hard drives). So I tend to believe it's more of a BIOS limitation than the OS itself.

 

[Aikouka]

I'd presume that it's because of 2^31 = (when divided down) 2GB. I presume one bit is taken for parity~. I also presume that it's centered in the CPU, but now we have 64-bit CPUs but still only 32-bit disk controllers.

 

[ZeGermans]

right now, win XP 32bit. I've tried booting with xp 64 with no success on an over 2TB array (I'm running 8 320GB drives in raid 6, which comes in just below 2TB. I tried raid5, but nothing would boot off of it)

 

[ZeGermans]

bump

 

[Bozo Galora]

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t18158.html
Quote (among other good posts)
:
Ok folks, I got a RocketRaid 2310 [PCI-Express x4] and placed it into a PCI-Express x16 slot (it is compatible with that). I am running 32-BIT Windows 2003 Server with SP1 and I created an array of 2.2TB no problem without partitioning extra. The key was definitely getting something that has 64-bit LBA - it is disheartening that the onboard SATA controllers have poor documentation on this - but they appear to be all 48-bit.

It is important that you use Service Pack 1 for Windows 2003 Server as that is what is required to get the >2TB array. Remember the old MBR table we have forgotten about? That has a 2TB limit to it so Windows supports something called Gui Partition Table http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table This is a new partition type that allows much larger single partitions.

So again, you can do this in 32-bit 2003 Server but you need SP1 to do it or 64-bit XP [not 32-bit XP].

FYI: I used the above RocketRaid with 4 Seagate 750GB SATA2 drives in Raid5 to make 2.2TB of space.
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The dynamic vol route..........

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsSe...2e-96cd-986c89ef40eb1033.mspx?mfr=true