fast question:
is there a size limit to the space on a drive that can be formatted into ntfs? what is it?
is there a size limit to the space on a drive that can be formatted into ntfs? what is it?
ntfs limit
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HammerBot
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There is always a limitation, but its incredibly large. Well, thats considering the basic file system. FAT32 supports a maximum partition size of 2 terabytes, and NTFS supports much larger partitions. However, for some incredible stupid reason Micro$oft has decided to limit the maximum FAT32 partition to 32GB in W2K and WXP. I have not heard or read of a similar limitation with NTFS, so I dont think it exists. In that case there is no practical limit.
Of course, in order to use very large drives connected to your system, your must have an IDE controller/system that supports 48-bit LBA addressing in order to use drives larger than 128GB. That goes for any file ssystem.
Of course, in order to use very large drives connected to your system, your must have an IDE controller/system that supports 48-bit LBA addressing in order to use drives larger than 128GB. That goes for any file ssystem.
stealthbig
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Huh? Right now im running XP on FAT32 and I only have a 37.1 Gb Partition.... What are you talking about a 30gb limit?
hammerbot, i believe that the fat32 supports only 126gb...
actually it depends on the OS i think
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/productdoc/en/default.asp?url=/WINDOWSXP/home/using/productdoc/en/choosing_between_NTFS_FAT_and_FAT32.asp
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My computer is so fast it proves the theory of relativity wrong...
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by grassapa on 08/29/02 11:36 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
actually it depends on the OS i think
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/productdoc/en/default.asp?url=/WINDOWSXP/home/using/productdoc/en/choosing_between_NTFS_FAT_and_FAT32.asp
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My computer is so fast it proves the theory of relativity wrong...
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by grassapa on 08/29/02 11:36 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
HammerBot
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No, you own link actually shows it.
FAT16: Volumes from floppy disk size up to 4 gigabytes
FAT32: Volumes from 512 MB to 2 TB.
NTFS: Volumes much larger than 2 terabytes (TB) are possible.
The 126 GB limit (which actually is a 128 GB limit) you are referring is because most ATA100 IDE controlles/drives only uses 28-bits for the LBA address.
The 24-bit addressing limitation is 8.4GB.
The 28-bit addressing limitation is 137.4GB.
48-bit addressing breaks the "barrier", and theoretically allows the maximum storage limit to be 144 petabytes. It also gives the ability to transfer more than 256 sectors per command (i.e., up to 65,536 sectors per command).
The ANSI T13 Technical Committee developed 48-bit addressing, which is interoperable with the previous 28-bit addressing standard.
There is no actual 32GB limitation with FAT32 partitions. This is <i>only</i> applicable when creating a FAT32 partition with a MS operating system installation CD. Using the FDISK utility on a standard Win9x boot disk, or a utility from a disk manufacturer will allow creation of FAT32 partitions that exceed 32GB on a clean HDD. Partitioning utilities can perform the same procedure from within the GUI.
FAT16 can support 4GB partitions, which can be created with FDISK. But the MS-DOS FAT file system can only support 2GB per partition, so a HDD formatted as FAT16 must have the partitions split into 2GB sections. In other words, if you wish to have a FAT16 drive accessible from MS-DOS or Win95/98 and Windows NT, your partition can be no larger than 2GB.
The maximum partition size of FAT16 under Windows NT is 2GB using 32K clusters, or 4GB using the non-standard 64K clusters that other versions of Windows do not support.
FAT32 supports drives up to 2 terabytes in size ... however, some hard disks may not be able to contain bootable partitions that are larger than 7.8GB because of limitations in the BIOS INT13 interface, which would require flashing to support updated INT13 extensions.
While FAT32 may support partitions of this size, it does so at the cost of tremendous slack waste and an enormous file allocation table.
Note: Original Win98 and Win98SE versions of FDISK cannot fully recognize HDDs that are 64GB or larger. A newer version of FDISK without this limitation can be downloaded <A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q263044&" target="_new">here</A>.
Under NTFS, the maximum size of a partition is 2 to the 64th power. This is equal to 16 binary exabytes, or 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 bytes (18 billion GB).
And so, if you are using NTFS, it should be a while before you encounter a partition size limitation!
Them's the facts, gentlemen. No more guessing.
Toejam31
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The 28-bit addressing limitation is 137.4GB.
48-bit addressing breaks the "barrier", and theoretically allows the maximum storage limit to be 144 petabytes. It also gives the ability to transfer more than 256 sectors per command (i.e., up to 65,536 sectors per command).
The ANSI T13 Technical Committee developed 48-bit addressing, which is interoperable with the previous 28-bit addressing standard.
There is no actual 32GB limitation with FAT32 partitions. This is <i>only</i> applicable when creating a FAT32 partition with a MS operating system installation CD. Using the FDISK utility on a standard Win9x boot disk, or a utility from a disk manufacturer will allow creation of FAT32 partitions that exceed 32GB on a clean HDD. Partitioning utilities can perform the same procedure from within the GUI.
FAT16 can support 4GB partitions, which can be created with FDISK. But the MS-DOS FAT file system can only support 2GB per partition, so a HDD formatted as FAT16 must have the partitions split into 2GB sections. In other words, if you wish to have a FAT16 drive accessible from MS-DOS or Win95/98 and Windows NT, your partition can be no larger than 2GB.
The maximum partition size of FAT16 under Windows NT is 2GB using 32K clusters, or 4GB using the non-standard 64K clusters that other versions of Windows do not support.
FAT32 supports drives up to 2 terabytes in size ... however, some hard disks may not be able to contain bootable partitions that are larger than 7.8GB because of limitations in the BIOS INT13 interface, which would require flashing to support updated INT13 extensions.
While FAT32 may support partitions of this size, it does so at the cost of tremendous slack waste and an enormous file allocation table.
Note: Original Win98 and Win98SE versions of FDISK cannot fully recognize HDDs that are 64GB or larger. A newer version of FDISK without this limitation can be downloaded <A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q263044&" target="_new">here</A>.
Under NTFS, the maximum size of a partition is 2 to the 64th power. This is equal to 16 binary exabytes, or 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 bytes (18 billion GB).
And so, if you are using NTFS, it should be a while before you encounter a partition size limitation!
Them's the facts, gentlemen. No more guessing.
Toejam31
<font color=red>First Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=17935" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Devastating Dalek Destroyer</font color=green></A>
<font color=red>Second Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=15942" target="_new"><font color=green>Toey's Dynamite DDR Duron</font color=green></A>
__________________________________________________________
<font color=purple>"Some push the envelope. Some just lick it. And some can't find the flap."</font color=purple>
HammerBot
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Yes. But this is not a limitation of the filesystem. It is, as previously stated, a limitation in XP. The file system itself theoretically supports partitions up to 2 TB. But as Toejam correctly pointed out, very large partitions are not very efficient due to the resulting large allocation table. Perhaps this is the reason why microsoft has desided to limit the creation of new partitions to 32 GB under W2K and WXP.
Actually, no it doesn't, grassapa.
It states that FAT32 supports volumes from 512MB to 2TB, and that in WinXP, you can <i>format</i> a FAT32 volume up to 32GB only.
Which is not exactly true. This is misleading.
You <i>can</i> easily format volumes that are 32GB or larger with WinXP. You can also mount and format volumes that are 32GB or more within WinXP.
What you <i>can't</i> do is create a partition that is larger than 32GB in size with the WinXP CD that will be formatted with the FAT32 file system <i>during the operating system installation process.</i> However, if you create the partition(s) by other means, such as with FDISK, or another third-party utility (like Partition Magic), there is no difficulty with formatting the partitions within the GUI, regardless of size, or the type of file system that is selected.
For example, I have four FAT32 partitions on my main system, by preference. The system partition is 10GB, while the other three partitions exceed 32GB in size. All of the partitions were created with FDISK, and then formatted with WinXP ... the first during Setup, and the rest from within the GUI.
<A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q314463&" target="_new">Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP</A>
Toejam31
<font color=red>First Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=17935" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Devastating Dalek Destroyer</font color=green></A>
<font color=red>Second Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=15942" target="_new"><font color=green>Toey's Dynamite DDR Duron</font color=green></A>
__________________________________________________________
<font color=purple>"Some push the envelope. Some just lick it. And some can't find the flap."</font color=purple>
It states that FAT32 supports volumes from 512MB to 2TB, and that in WinXP, you can <i>format</i> a FAT32 volume up to 32GB only.
Which is not exactly true. This is misleading.
You <i>can</i> easily format volumes that are 32GB or larger with WinXP. You can also mount and format volumes that are 32GB or more within WinXP.
What you <i>can't</i> do is create a partition that is larger than 32GB in size with the WinXP CD that will be formatted with the FAT32 file system <i>during the operating system installation process.</i> However, if you create the partition(s) by other means, such as with FDISK, or another third-party utility (like Partition Magic), there is no difficulty with formatting the partitions within the GUI, regardless of size, or the type of file system that is selected.
For example, I have four FAT32 partitions on my main system, by preference. The system partition is 10GB, while the other three partitions exceed 32GB in size. All of the partitions were created with FDISK, and then formatted with WinXP ... the first during Setup, and the rest from within the GUI.
<A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q314463&" target="_new">Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP</A>
Toejam31
<font color=red>First Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=17935" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Devastating Dalek Destroyer</font color=green></A>
<font color=red>Second Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=15942" target="_new"><font color=green>Toey's Dynamite DDR Duron</font color=green></A>
__________________________________________________________
<font color=purple>"Some push the envelope. Some just lick it. And some can't find the flap."</font color=purple>
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