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External RAID - Max partition size?

Forum Windows Vista : Vista General Discussion - External RAID - Max partition size?

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Tanforan   04-25-2007 at 02:45:01 AM

Hi, I'm thinking of setting up a NAS/RAID5 box to store digital media to feed to Media Center on an XP box. I will mainly be encoding/transferring files on my Vista machine, so it would need to be recognizable on the network by both Vista and XP.

I ran into a comment somewhere that the maximum recognizable NTFS partition size for 32-bit versions of Windows is 2 TB. Does this apply to 32-bit Vista? Does it apply to a RAID being addressed over the LAN, or do I need to limit my RAID size to 2 TB or less to avoid problems in Windows? I've been digging everywhere but can't seem to find any definitive answer.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

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joke   04-25-2007 at 03:49:33 AM
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NTFS with xp, win2003 and vista (kernel is based on 2003) supports (2^32)-1 clusters (clusters are 4-64Kb, i think that's the right) which gives a limit of between ~16TB to ~256TB (boggles the mind). FYI, The NTFS spec says 2^64-1 clusters!

The only thing I can imagine your comment could be based on is that an MBR only supports a maximum partition sizes of 2T but I don't think any NAS system worries about MBRs. I am reasonably sure any physical limits (up to a VERY big number) would be due to a specific box manufacturer's configuration (i.e. 4 500G drives). Now that there are !fast! 1G drives, I bet you see that 2T number double in a few weeks...

good luck

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Tanforan   04-25-2007 at 08:03:03 PM
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Cool, thanks. We'll see how it goes!

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EmptySpacez   04-26-2007 at 04:17:27 PM
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You've probably got it from this page that shows how the NTFS works in brief. If not the page is worth reading anyway. So the page contains the table which shows Volume Size - 2 GB–2 terabytes. Probably, that cat be confusing. This table just shows how Windows actually calculates the cluster size that is defined by default by the operating system itself if you will leave this option alone while creating the new NTFS formatted volume. But as you know, Windows volume manager alows you defining the cluster size yourself. So if you will set up your new 1 TB Hitachi, Seagate, whoever, hard drive and try to format it you will be able to format it using the 512 byte cluster size. Won't you? The same thing here. The answer I guess, is written a little below the table. Let me quote the article: 'In theory, the maximum NTFS volume size is 264 clusters minus 1 cluster. However, the maximum NTFS volume size as implemented in Windows Server 2003 is 232 clusters minus 1 cluster. For example, using 64-KB clusters, the maximum NTFS volume size is 256 terabytes minus 64 KB. Using the default cluster size of 4 KB, the maximum NTFS volume size is 16 terabytes minus 4 KB'. And there's also a table that contains the row: 'Maximum volume size Architecturally: 264 clusters minus 1 cluster Implementation: 256 terabytes minus 64 KB ( 232 clusters minus 1 cluster)'

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joke   04-26-2007 at 09:20:21 PM
- 0 +

thanks, I didn't realize the you could have a 512 byte cluster - seems like a major waste of resources...

fyi 2^32 is just 4 gig and the -1 is the biggest guage value you can represent in 32 bits (0xffffffff). I don't remeber how many 'exebits' 2^64 represents but it more than I'll ever need to worry about, wait...

........0xffffffff == .......................4,294,967,295
0xffffffffffffffff == 18,446,744,073,709,551,615

2^64 is %42,949,672.97 larger than 2^32 -- (.04G %) enough with the funny facts...

I love Windows Calculator in scientific mode... it's just fun to see that big-ass number every now and then.

-- later

edited 4/27 @ 9:04 pm pst - just added a good comparison... enjoy

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