What size Hard Drive is too Big? 2

[Rhombus65]

My brother has an application that the data is stored on multiple cd's. he would like to store the application and all of the data on HD for faster access. I am not really up on HD sizes as they apply to OS's

New HD's 250 GB...?

Is it reasonable to say that you could install one or two of these HD's and load all of the necessary data?

If memory serves me correctly W2K had a partition (volume) limit of 100 GB but with an unlimited # of volumes. If I am correct, is this the same with XP?

Could I install say two 250 GB HD's and partition them so that no partition (volume) was greater than the maximum allowed by XP?

Any thoughts on the above, both critical and advisory are greatly appreciated!





Jim: A+, MCP W2k, Master Electrician

"The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing..."
-Albert Einstein

 

[mrainey]

Not sure about Windows handling so many large partitions. Most of the problems I've heard of with huge hard drives pertain to limitations of the computer's BIOS.

 

[kiddpete]

XP Pro is handling two 120 gig drives on my machine. I'm not aware of a disk size limit.

 

[bcastner]

Make sure that this Hotfix is applied:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;331958

 

[cdogg]

This article should answer some of your questions:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/...oc/en/choosing_between_NTFS_FAT_and_FAT32.asp

Windows XP should be able to address as much as several Terabytes per NTFS partition. Even though you shouldn't have a problem, there are a couple things to consider:

1) Very large partitions are harder to manage in the sense of defragmentation and organization.

2) Many older motherboards have IDE controllers that use the older 28-bit addressing scheme that is limited to 137GB. This is often a physical limitation that requires a PCI IDE controller card that supports 48-bit addressing to get around.

3) Of course, there are also limitations with older BIOS's (pre-1999) having common barriers like 8GB or 32GB. A BIOS revision can normally get around them.

~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle

 

[Rhombus65]

Thank you to all for your input.

Jim: A+, MCP W2k, Master Electrician

"The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing..."
-Albert Einstein