Size of partition

trackstar2000 · 06-05-2013, 02:27 AM

Hello,

I am planning to use an old Dell 2950 as a file server for backup data. The dell machine has 6 bays. Looking to maybe adding 2TB drives.

What is best approach? Is there a 2 TB limitation on the MBR?

Thanks,
TS

ali.abry · 06-05-2013, 03:23 AM

Hi
it depends on your HDDs .
if they have 512 byte sectors , mbr limit is 2TB
if they have 4096 byte sectors , mbr limit is 16TB
why don't you use GUID partition table (GPT) ? it can handle disks up to 8 ZiB (zebibytes) if your hdds have 512 byte sectors.

trackstar2000 · 06-05-2013, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ali.abry

Hi
it depends on your HDDs .
if they have 512 byte sectors , mbr limit is 2TB
if they have 4096 byte sectors , mbr limit is 16TB
why don't you use GUID partition table (GPT) ? it can handle disks up to 8 ZiB (zebibytes) if your hdds have 512 byte sectors.

Got it. I am assuming I can have one big raid 5 and then go in and carve a small portion for the OS and then the rest for data just like fdisk back in the days?