Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.file_system (
More info?)
There are two issues:
1) the SCSI SBC command set - which is used regardless of interconnect on
Windows - only defined 32-bit block numbers. All versions of Windows (to the
present) only use 32-bit block numbers. With a 512 byte block, that gives
you 2TB. This is independent of dynamic or basic disks. You can combine
dynamic disks to arrive at a larger VOLUME: up to 32 dynamic disks can be
combined giving you 64TB (striping) or 62TB (stripe with parity - aka
RAID5). NTFS could support up to 256TB but not using the inbox volume
manager.
2) the MBR partition format also restricts you to 32-bit block numbers, so
in order to exceed 2TB single LUNs on Windows, you would need to use GPT
instead.
The newly approved SBC-2 specification contains commands that use 64-bit
block numbers. Expect a public announcement about support for this in the
near future.
"Joep" <j o e p @ d i y d a t a r e c o v e r y . n l> wrote in message
news:566c3$41364ad4$3eddca68$10119@nf1.news-service-com...
> From MS website: "The NTFS file system that powers Windows Storage Server
> 2003 has no limits (over four billion tested) in terms of the number of
> files on a volume and each NTFS volume can be up to 256 terabytes in size
> (tested)."
>
> --
> Joep
>
> "naveed" <iqbal_naveed@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:038001c4906d$abe71660$a401280a@phx.gbl...
>> Does Windows 2000 or 2003 supports a volume of >2TB?
>> Does it require a special driver?
>> Does it require anything to change in registry?
>>
>> I have infortrend external storage which works fine with
>> 3TB under Linux but Windows does not show any volume.
>> Less than 2TB volume is seen by Windows.
>>
>> Any support is really apprecaited.
>>
>> Naveed.
>
>