Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win95.general.discussion (
More info?)
"Haggis" <bingsnapREMOVE@THIShotmail.com> wrote in message
news:emFA8AuWFHA.3320@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
>
> "Tim Slattery" <Slattery_T@bls.gov> wrote in message
> news:supj81lv7khh5edldkcokj49qmo7iojm3t@4ax.com...
>> "DL" <DL@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>>
>>>What is the largest physical size HDD Win95 can take. I don't mean
>>>partition, but that actual whole hard drive?
>>
>> Umm..I think it's 32GB, but I'm having a hard time finding a reference
>> to back that up.
>>
>> --
>> Tim Slattery
>> MS MVP(DTS)
>> Slattery_T@bls.gov
>
> <snip>
>
> The other source of drive size limits has to do with the operating system.
> Windows 95-A or the first version of Win95 could support an 8.4GB hard
> drive. However, because of the size limitations of the FAT16, you had to
> partition the drive in 2GB partitions. That meant five partitions on an
> 8.4GB drive. Microsoft does say that this version of Win95 will support
> drives of up to 32GB, providing the partition size is no greater than 2GB!
> The limit of the FAT16 system is due to the maximum number of clusters
> that can be addressed is 65,525 (2 raised to the 16th power or 216).
> Multiplying this number times the maximum cluster size (32,768 bytes)
> gives the partition size limit of 2GB.
>
> Windows 95B introduced the FAT32 system. In theory, this new file
> allocation table system can address a hard drive that is 2 terabytes
> (2,199,023,255,552) in size. The FAT32 table does not scale well in that
> as its size increases, it takes more time for Windows to find information
> in it. It also takes more time to calculate free space at boot-up. The
> maximum size of the FAT32 table is about 128 megabytes. The maximum size
> of any one file on a FAT32 drive is 4 gigabytes. Win98, WinME and Win2000
> all support the FAT32 file system.
>
>
here is the link for the whole article if you want it Tim :>
http://www.spcug.org/reviews/bl0107.htm