Microsofts Terrabyte Tyranny

[desilver]

Microsoft famed holder of the Y2K Bug has anther bug that it can be proud of.

TheTERRABYTE TERRA.
What is this, well its if you have a hardisk grater than or equal to
1 terrabyte, the operating system will count and it counts in megabytes.
Now if you make a drive with a Terrabyte in it, Windows generically
counts the Megabytes, but.......
when it gets to a Terrabyte it says you now have "one".

One Megabyte that is.

Hence on 2003 server you will have reports that say..." these services could not be started as you have insufficient disk space."

Now you know the reason VISTA was taken back to 2007.

This was found and reported in Melborne Australia 2 months ago or so.
The fix has not be given yet, except all disc's must be under 1 terrabyte.

 

[mad_fitzy]

ROFL. Stupid bill

 

[MG37221]

No worries.

 

[IVAces]

Do you have the article about that?

I'm about to install a 2TB SAN. I'm just wondering if that's native drives or it its any partition.

If isn't any partition, why has it not appeared sooner as a major flaw.

THX

 

[Codesmith]

The only problem I read about was trying to create partitions larger than 2 TB. Apparently you need to use two partition if your RAID 5 array yeilds a 4 GB drive.

 

[IVAces]

All I have to say is that I hope Longhorn Server solves this little issue.

Also are you talking about 32 bit or 64bit 2003 Server?
And is it R1 or R2?

There are significant differences between each iteration.

 

[mesarectifier]

We have CPUs that can address 16tb RAM, but Windows can't address a 1tb hard disk?

With the 750gb drives already on the market, this is about to become a very real problem.

 

[306maxi]

Wow....... some guy posts a stupid rumour and everyone just jumps straight in and believes it......

 

[bluntside]

:::::dum dum dum: Dont worry, be happy.:::::::::dum dum dum dum

 

[hergieburbur]

Excuse me for being skeptical here, but I doubt it. I have seen and built RAID arrays larger than 1TB before in Server 2k3, and most good RAID arrays appear as a single disk to Windows. Plus I know that Windows 2000 allowed larger drives and partitions than 1TB.

Care to post a link or some actual proof?

 

[IVAces]

Let me reiterate my previous post.

Where is the articles backing this up?

 

[linux_0]

All the more reason to switch to Linux or BSD :-D

 

[mesarectifier]

Hmm I'm starting to think this is some kind of hoax also. It's quite a good one, though, if indeed it is. It is perfectly believable that MS would build something that stupid into Windows.....

Although if it is a hoax - YOU'RE A MONTH LATE.

 

[Sonic_Reducer]

ok this is strange... shurelly just a rumor , i don't think microsoft would allowed that bug to prevaille that long , and how about those huge external hd's from lacie i heard those worked fine in windows xp,..ok after format they would go for 9xx gb but i think they read as 1TB. weird rumor

 

[306maxi]

All the more reason to switch to Linux or BSD :-D

My god you're an effing fool. The guy posted no proof and in your stupid linux fanboism you go posting bs like this.

Get a frigging life.

 

[seanie]

Calm down mate he was only messing

 

[hergieburbur]

This guy definitely doesn't know what he's talking about. His first line mentions Microsoft being responsible for the "Y2K" bug, when they had nothing really to do with it. The cause and biggest worry was with financial institutions, utilities and industries that still had legacy software Programmed in COBOL and other older languages. COBOL has been around in some form or another since 1959, at which point Bill Gates was only 4 years old, and Microsoft hadn't even been thought of yet.

Now, lets all ignore him and discuss something more important...

 

[Codesmith]

Here is some usefull information.

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/Library/b51311b3-ec61-402e-96cd-986c89ef40eb1033.mspx?mfr=true

 

[IVAces]

That answers my question.

CS Thanks for the link.

This sums it up for me.

If you want to use volumes larger than 2 TB, you must use dynamic spanned, striped, or RAID-5 volume.

As I'm relatively sure that there isn't anyone out there, save the occasional insane IT director or govnerment employee who'd make a 2TB partition without significant redundency, this is a non-issue.

I can't really think of an instance when one would do that or if its even possible right now.

I mean if it was up to me, I'd use raid 6+0 on anything that I didn't want to loose since storage is cheap.

 

[desilver]

Sorry no article, just happened to be there at the time, IT guys were really pissed.

Suggest you ring the Microsoft help line and see if a patch is available, we speculated that the routien maybe to close to the kernal to be fixed except upon a new cut of software.

 

[desilver]

Microsoft server 2003 SP1. Wether it was 32/64 do not know.
However the servers were new from Dell, delivered hot off the assembly line, so at a guess 64 bit.

 

[Codesmith]

To exceed the 2 TB limmit you need to switch to dymanic disks and use software RAID 5.

Hardware solutions are not a work arround.

At [H]ardOPC someone built a storage servers with 4.8 TB of WD 400 GB RE2's. He did a real impressive custom wiring job on his 1KW PSU, as well as building a custom rack for the drives.

Using Windows XP Pro he had to set up two 1.99 TB NTFS partition, which show up in windows as 1.99 TB as expected.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=714871&page=15&pp=20&highlight=Areca

Pages 1-9 are his old 1 TB build, pages 10+ are his 4.8 TB build

 

[Xanthro]

There is no terabyte limit, plenty of people have created RAIDs larger than that .

That said, at one time there was a 32 meg limit that us older guys remember.

 

[Codesmith]

Yes you can create a >2TB array, but Windows limits basic discs to a volume size of 2TB. Above that you have to switch to dynamic disks and/or other workarrounds. Most people chose just to keep things simple and use multiple 1.99 TB and smaller partitions.

Here is something interesting and possibly the cause of the problem that prompted this post.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/906668/en-us

When you try to install a Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) mount point on a disk that is larger than 1 terabyte (TB) on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based computer, the installation may fail.

CAUSE
This problem occurs because the PrimaryVolumeSpaceRemaining property is incorrectly set to a negative value for a disk that is larger than 1 TB. When you try to install an SMS mount point, Windows Server 2003 runs a condition check in the InstallExecuteSequence table in the Microsoft Windows Installer package. If the PrimaryVolumeSpaceRemaining property is set to a negative value, the condition check will fail. When this occurs, you experience the problem that is mentioned in the Symptoms section.

So any program that is checks the PrimarlyVolumeSpaceRemaining property before installation is going to have problems with >1TB partitions.

Microsoft has a hotfix avaliable, but you have to manually find and apply it.

 

[sailer]

"That said, at one time there was a 32 meg limit that us older guys remember"

I resent being called older. Matured with time, maybe, but never older. Same goes for those who remember 2 meg hard discs and how no one felt that you could ever fill one, so what was the need? Worse, that 2 meg disc cost more than whole computer does today.[/quote]