Any >2TB disk announcements/leaks?

[mdovey]

Is there any news on single disks with >2TB?

In the last 12 months we've moved from 1TB to 1.5TB to 2TB, so a similar rate would suggest 3TB and 4TB disks appearing over the next 12 months, although if new technologies are needed for the density required this may slow things down.

The only articles I could find online were from 2007 predicated 4TB in 2011/2012 - so will we really not see any major size increases for 12+ months?

Matthew

 

[Wizardskills]

Im sure they will come out soon but im not sure how useful they will be as i think NTFS can only a volume size up to 2Tb. Although i suppose partitioning may overcome that problem.

 

[mdovey]

You can have >2TB partitions (under Vista at least), but only if you mark the disk as GPT rather than MBR. Quite a few disk utilities/imagers can't handle GPT disks (yet).

I have a 2.7TB partition under Vista on a RAID array. The RAID controller (motherboard ICH10R) would not allow me to boot off a partition this large however. I suspect that this is a limitation in the ICH10R, but wouldn't be surprised if Windows can't use >2TB partitions as system or boot partitions.

However, as data partitions, >2TB partitions are fine.

Matthew

 

[wasc]

You can have >2TB partitions (under Vista at least), but only if you mark the disk as GPT rather than MBR. Quite a few disk utilities/imagers can't handle GPT disks (yet).

I have a 2.7TB partition under Vista on a RAID array. The RAID controller (motherboard ICH10R) would not allow me to boot off a partition this large however. I suspect that this is a limitation in the ICH10R, but wouldn't be surprised if Windows can't use >2TB partitions as system or boot partitions.

However, as data partitions, >2TB partitions are fine.

Matthew

Yep - pretty much correct.

Windows will only boot from a MBR disk, which is limited to 2Tb
Windows will happily speak to a GPT disk once it's booted though.

Therefore you'd need a normal disk as your boot, and then your >2Tb disk as a data drive.