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Are there any problems with using a 5TB external hard drive with Windows SBS2003?

I want to run some backup software on an old server with SBS2003. (It would be preferable if we had a more modern machine to use but this is all that is available.) It will be backing up data from a NAS device (across the network) onto a 5TB external hard drive attached to the SBS2003 server. Will I see any problems with the 5TB drive? Will I be able to store 5TB of data? ( I read somebody suggesting that there would be some sort of problem with the cluster size but I didn't understand it.)

Is there a way that I could test whether or not I can store 5TB of data on it?

Thank you

Cris Hanna

would depend on what you're using to back up
Windows/SBS backup will not work with anything larger than older 2 TB drives...this is a limitation of Server 2003....not SBS

Also keep in mind that Server 2003 was declared "dead" almost 2 years ago by MS. Your just asking to be hacked.

Tom Cieslik

You are not going to be able create primary partition bigger than 2TB, this is MBR limitations and you can't convert your 2003SBS MBR disk to GPT.
You can create 3 partitions 2x2TB +1TB on External drive and manage some jobs to backup to different partitions but using one 5TB on 2003 is not possible

Jackie Man

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn653570(v=vs.85).aspx

You should be able to make use of a 5TB external disk as long as you format it in GPT.

Tom Cieslik

I'm sorry,,, you not going to be able create 3 partitions since Windows 2003 MBR limitation is 2TB per disk, so windows will not allow you use another free space for next partition.

You can try install this PATCH to enable GPT on W2003
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/919117/a-hotfix-is-available-that-adds-support-for-guid-partition-table-gpt-volumes-that-are-larger-than-2-terabytes-on-a-windows-server-2003-based-server-cluster

SOLUTION

Jackie Man

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ASKER

I have already created a 5TB partition formatting it in GPT on a Windows 10 machine. When I moved it across to the SBS 2003 machine, it showed up as a 5TB disk in Windows Explorer. Is this enough evidence to be able to be certain that I am going to be able to store 5TB of data on it?
Thanks

Jackie Man

Yes

SBS2003 SP1 has native support for logical volume in GPT format.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

SOLUTION