Motherboard limits hd capacity?

[BlueDogAnchorite]

I think I read that bios' need to meet a certian criteria to recognize drives at 2tb size and above? It's a very vague memory of reading it..

Couldn't find anything from google, so just double checking ta.

 

[wolfeking]

ive seen some motherboards on newegg saying "3+TB support", but that is vague also.
I do believe that the BIOS is limited in how big of a drive size that it can recognize.
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm has some interesting info on old BIOS HDD barriers.
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html covers the 2TB limit. It has to do with 32 bit addresses.

 

[linkin]

You need a board with UEFI to have it in a single partition, else you need to split it into smaller ones.

 

[BlueDogAnchorite]

Ah uefi, thats it.

I would like to assume that all boards past a certain date are .. uefi.
I couldnt find that term on the board I just ordered though.

http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4016#sp

Any ideas if it is? thanks.

 

[wolfeking]

it is not.
It would be listed under BIOS. UEFI is not listed.

 

[BlueDogAnchorite]

Damn it. I assume I can have as many 2tb drives as I want though. Just not one that's larger than 2 by itself. I have never used partitions, will I lose any capacity if it splits it up? Any other disadvantage of partitions?
Thanks for the assistance.

 

[StrangleHold]

Ah uefi, thats it.

I would like to assume that all boards past a certain date are .. uefi.
I couldnt find that term on the board I just ordered though.

http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4016#sp

Any ideas if it is? thanks.

Damn it. I assume I can have as many 2tb drives as I want though. Just not one that's larger than 2 by itself. I have never used partitions, will I lose any capacity if it splits it up? Any other disadvantage of partitions?
Thanks for the assistance.

People need to check it out before they respond. Alot of people here just take wild guesses and have no idea what they are talking about.

Your board has a Gigabyte Hybrid EFI Bios. The board will support 3TB+ size harddrives. So your fine.

 

[larsch]

It is mbr vs gpt. The latter is needed for larger than 2 TiB drives. To boot from a gpt partitioned drive you need the new kind of bios.

You can split a mbr-style drive up as much as you want, but you will never get it past 2 TiB with 512 byte sectors.

 

[StrangleHold]

It is mbr vs gpt. The latter is needed for larger than 2 TiB drives. To boot from a gpt partitioned drive you need the new kind of bios.

His bios has GUID, which I said above.

You can split a mbr-style drive up as much as you want, but you will never get it past 2 TiB with 512 byte sectors.

That has already been established.

 

[larsch]

His bios has GUID, which I said above.

The uefi-thing comes to play when you need to boot from such a drive. You don't need it for a data-only drive. I made a comment about that.

That has already been established.

Where?

 

[StrangleHold]

The uefi-thing comes to play when you need to boot from such a drive. You don't need it for a data-only drive. I made a comment about that.

True

Where?

Where has it not been. I meant in general.

 

[larsch]

Where has it not been. I meant in general.

In general yes, but it was brought up in this thread that mbr-partitioning is enough, if you just split the drive up in more than one partition.

 

[StrangleHold]

In general yes, but it was brought up in this thread that mbr-partitioning is enough, if you just split the drive up in more than one partition.

No, you cant do it with the MBR.