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Installing Windows 7/Server 2008 R2 on 2TB Drives
I would like to discus everyone’s failures and success with type of install.
In other Threads we have disused partitioning out the drive into 3 partitions to overcome problems.
So let’s hear about your installs.
:::Here is Mine:::
I want to put 5 2TB SATA drives in my Windows 2008 R2 server but while I was test installing Windows 2008 R2 refused to see the full space correctly. I am worried there is an issue with the Windows 7/2008 R2 code in relation to 2TB SATA drives. Seems to work great on SAS or SCSI.
Typically when I install 5 data drives in a server I use RAID 5. This typically shows up as 5 x size of drive. So when I have 5 500GB drives I see 2.5TB of space. (Note: I understand RAID and I know about parity and that it is NOT all useable space, but let’s just count it as space for the sake of this test).
Note: My OS is on a 2 mirrored 10K drives and not part of the RAID for data. When I install 5 2TB drives you would expect to see 10TB of space, however Windows Server R2 only shows it as 4TB of space. After checking settings and making lots of changes I finally got it to show as 2 partitions of 4TB and no hint of the 2TB of leftover space.
I switched between 250GB and 500GB drives (same machine, same Windows Server 2008 R2) just different drives. With the 250GB I get 1.25TB of space and with the 500GB again I get 2.5TB of space. Back to the 2TB drives and I only get 4TB of space.
I tried 3 different SATA controllers including the one on the motherboard (built-in). All do the same thing. In the controller BIOS I see all drives and can create a 10TB RAID but when I boot to Windows Server 2008 R2 it only see 4TB.
Side test: I replaced my 2 OS (Windows Server 2008 R2) drives with one new 250GB SATA fresh out of the factory box. I installed Windows 7 on the drive and then tried to access the 5 x 2TB drives with the same results, I see the 5 x 250GB drives fine and I see the 5 x500GB drives fine.
Is it possible there is an error in the SATA drivers or is there a code problem in Windows 7/2008 R2??
Please note: if I use SAS or SCSI drives I do not have any problems everything works as expected.
@DocBrown how did your 2TB drive install go??