Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of sglee
sglee

asked on

2TB Limitation with Windows 2008 R2/SBS2011

Hi,
 
 I have Rocket RAID SATA RAID Controller with 4 x 1TB SATA HDs and created RAID 5 with no hot spare, so I have total 3TB effective storage space.
 I was trying to use all 3TB as one partition (for SBS2011 OS and data), but could not because it  created two partitions like below:

Disk1 Unallocated Space 2,048 GB
Disk1 Unallocated Space 746 GB

So I googled on 2TB Limitation with Windows 2008 and learned that you can't create BOOT partition more than 2TB, but also learned that I can create a data partition > 2TB.

I thought, then, I can create 200GB for OS partition and use the remaining space (2.8TB) as data partition. So when I saw 3TB partition showed up on Disk setup window, I entered 200GB. This time I get the following:

Disk1 Partition 1: System Reserved 100MB
Disk 1 Partition 2 192GB Primary
Disk1 Unallocated Space 1,852GB
Disk1 Unallocated Space 746GB

If I proceed to install SBS2011 on 200GB partition, will I be able to combine two separate partitions (1,852GB & 746GB)  into one (2.8TB) using COMPMGMT.MSC?
Avatar of David
David
Flag of United States of America image

The limit is not a PARTITION limit.  It is a bootable target ID limit.   When you repartition the 3TB target, you still end up with a 3TB disk.  
Avatar of sglee
sglee

ASKER

Can you rephrase your answer? I don't quite understand.
What you want to do will not work.  When you create a 200GB partition, you STILL  have a 3TB TARGET disk drive as far as the O/S is concerned, so you won't be able to boot the 200GB partition.    To explain the limit.  you have 32 bits worth of block numbers, so hex ffffffff blocks = 2.09TB.  The windows boot loader on that hardware can only address 32 bits worth of blocks for the logical disk.  

The problem is specific to the BOOT process.  32-bits worth of blocks is all the boot loader can handle.  Your target device is > FFFFFFFF blocks, so it doesn't matter how it is partitioned, windows won't get past the FFFFFFFF limit, so it doesn't matter how you slice and dice.   You're just going to have to build the RAID so it presents 2 different disk drives, i.e, a pair of RAID1s if you want redundancy.   (Since this is a server, then that is your only option, unless you want to get a small SSD and make it the boot disk).
Avatar of sglee

ASKER

So if I understand what you are saying correctly, what I am trying to do is not possible - that is out of four 1TB HDs, I created 3TB partition hoping to make the whole 3TB space as my C drive.
I went ahead and created 200GB partition when installing OS. Afte OS was completely installed, I ran COMPMGMT.msc. I see my C drive with 200GB, 1.8TB unpartitioned and extra 800GB unpartitioned. I created a partition for 1.8TB and it assigned drive letter F, but I can't do anything with extra 800GB because there is NO option to assign drive or create a partition.
Is that what you were trying to say?

Then as yo said, it would be wise to have smaller size HDs as OS with RAID 1 and get multiple big HDs with another RAID (1, 5 , or 10) for data, right?
I feel like my extra 1TB HD is being wasted as it is.
If that is the  case, then I will only use three 1 TB HDs, create RAID 5 which will give me 2TB effective space and use the last 1TB as a hot space or somthing.
You can have a bootable 2TB+ partition,but you need to have a system that supports UEFI.

This overcomes the BIOS  limitation

Your mother board and controller need to support this spec.

http://www.pcper.com/news/Motherboards/Gigabyte-Infusing-X79-Motherboards-3D-UEFI-BIOS

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463525
Google  MBR vs GPT if you want more info.

I have a Dell T310 with Windows 2008R2 server running RAID 5 with a 3 TB GPT partition that boots just fine.
Avatar of sglee

ASKER

pgm554:
"I have a Dell T310 with Windows 2008R2 server running RAID 5 with a 3 TB GPT partition that boots just fine." ...
I have a dell T110 with 4 1TB SATA HDs. Are you saying that I can create a RAID5 so that I can have ONE DRIVE with 3TB with OS installed?
I am confused. Are you saying what dlethe: explained is not correct?
Yup.
You just set it up for UEFI in the Dell BIOS.
When you boot the Serve install r disk,it shout give you the option of GPT as the default.
With that as the boot record,you can use all 3 tb(2,7) for the partition.
Avatar of sglee

ASKER

Pgm554,

(1) You just set it up for UEFI in the Dell BIOS.
(2) When you boot the Serve install r disk,it shout give you the option of GPT as the default.

Would you mind providing detailed steps for (1) and (2)?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of pgm554
pgm554
Flag of United States of America image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of sglee

ASKER

pgm554: noxcho:

I removed existing RAID in the controller BIOS screen and re-created RAID 5. And then in DELL BIOS, I changed to uEFI as pgm554 suggested. At OS Install screen, it showed Disk1 Unallocated Space 2,794.3GB Offline with a message "Windows can't be installed to this disk". When I clicked "show details", it showed a popu window "The selected disk is offline. To install to this disk Windows needs to bring the disk online. Click OK to bring the disk online ...".
So I clicked OK. Now it showed Disk1 Unallocated Space 2,794.3GB with the word "offline". As noxcho suggested, without creating any partition or formatting, I clicked Next to finish the rest of the installation.

I thank both of you for providing the solutions along with detailed steps. I could not have done this without your expertise.