ArtPog :
If you do decide to purchase a HDD 3 TB or larger understand that you should initialize/partition/format that disk with the GPT scheme. This, of course, is easily done via Disk Management.
If that > 2 TB disk is not partitioned with the GPT scheme, i.e., contains the MBR partitioning scheme, the OS will not detect any disk-capacity space > 2 TB (actually about 1.63 TB), so the remaining disk-space > 2 TB will be considered "unallocated" and therefore unavailable to your system.
MBR can be used on disks larger than 2 TB, it just limits the maximum partition size to 2 TB. That is, you can use a 4 TB drive MBR formatted as two 2 TB partitions. The inability to access more than 2 TB of disk space was a Windows XP limitation.
kansaskutabuddy :
So to make sure I understand this correctly. I have a laptop (Toshiba Qosmio 870) which supports dual hard drives. The size of the hard drive (2TB, 3TB) should not be an issue as when i connect the hard drive it will prompt me to format it correctly.
There are some esoterics about whether or not your system can boot off a disk larger than 2 TB depending on which OS you have. But based on the age of your laptop and since you're adding this as a second disk (not a boot disk), they won't apply. You can add any sized modern drive to your laptop without issues. For reference:
■XP does not understand GPT at all.
■Older versions of XP will only work with 2 TB or smaller drives. This was a NTFS limit which has since been updated.
■There's also a 512 byte vs 4k cluster limitation from the XP days which does not apply to newer OSes. Newer HDDs use 4k clusters, and won't work at all or will work at reduced capacity on older OSes.
■All versions of Win 7 can read/write GPT formatted drives.
■Only 64-bit Win 7 on a UEFI system can boot off a GPT formatted drive. If you have 32-bit Win 7, or 64-bit Win 7 on a non-UEFI motherboard, your boot drive needs to be MBR. Non-boot drives can be GPT, as per the above bullet point.
The other reason to switch to GPT was because MBR only supported 4 partitions. Windows 8.x and 10 use a partition for UEFI data, a boot partition, and a partition for the C: drive. Add a recovery partition and you're already at the 4 partition limit. The kludge in the old days was to make the last partition an extended partition, and create multiple logical partitions on it. These weren't real partitions, just an agreed-upon way to put data that looked like separate partitions onto a single partition. The problem being not everyone agreed on how to do it. GPT supports 128+ partitions on a single drive (more are possible, the spec just requires a minimum 128 be supported).
For SSDs, there's also a 4k cluster alignment issue. The SSD internally addresses flash cells in 4k groups. That is, if you erase data on the SSD to prepare it for future writing, it does it 4k at a time. If the filesystem's 4k clusters do not align with the SSD's 4k grouping, a filesystem erase instruction for a single 4k cluster could require the SSD erase two 4k groups, causing excess wear and slightly slowing down the SSD. Formatting the SSD using Windows 7 or newer should result in the correct alignment.