2tb limit on boot partitionsJuly 5th, 2010 by brianl

We were performing a routine RAID array upgrade and ran into something new: MBR drives cannot be bigger than 2tb. 

Because we configured 6 x 2tb drives in a RAID 10 configuration, we now have a 6TB drive that can only be used as a 2tb drive.   The remaining 4tb un-partitioned space cannot be used in Windows.  I suspect more of you will discover this as you create more ginormous arrays for a few hundred bucks!

  1. To break the 2tb barrier, you must convert the drive as a GPT drive.
  2. However, you cannot boot from a GPT partition.
  3. Also, you can only convert drives that are empty.

 Therefore, you can pretty much forget about installing Windows on a partition larger than 2tb.  That shouldn’t be a problem since your boot partition doesn’t need to be much larger than 80gb anyway.  Just make sure when configuring RAID array larger than 2tb, split it in to two volumes (or virtual drives in Dell Perc lingo).

  1. 80gb MBR – Boot disk
  2. 2tb > GTP – Data partition (Maximum 256 TB)

 

Here are some references.

http://carltonbale.com/how-to-break-the-2tb-2-terabyte-file-system-limit

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/gpt-on-x64.mspx

This entry was posted on Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Physical Server. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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