hard drives 3 and 4tb

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
For 3 and 4TB drives you need to CONVERT them to GPT (not MBR) drives if you want to use the full size partitions. (You could SPLIT the drives into smaller partitions but that IMO goes against the whole purpose of larger drives for multi media folders etc).

Max size of an MBR partition is around 2 - 2.2 TB. If you format them as old MBR drives (classical method) you won't be able to use the whole drives.

Convert GPT to MBR - Windows 8 - Windows 8

(Method shown is for W8 but is the same for W7).

BTW you can create very large partitions by SPANNING disks -- create DYNAMIC volume from Disk management and then click against the disks you want to be "Spanned".

Windows will then treat those multiple volumes as "SINGLE disks" -- useful if you have several small drives but want to create say a 6TB multi media folder -- a lot of the music / video cataloguing type stuff only works normally with a folder up to the available space on the disk -- using spanning gets round this restriction -- but if you DO use spanning adjust you backup strategy to backup by FOLDERS as windows controls where the data is physically located on the spanned volume set.

Cheers
jimbo

thank you for your reply i have no idea how to do any of this what you have advised our there any tuts about for me to check out thanks

TVeblen said:

muffin1962 said:

thank you for your reply would this help my problem

Code:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330

A Western Digital Live media player would be one piece to the puzzle. It would work provided you set up your system to use it. I use a WD Live in my entertainment system.

The WD Live works by accessing your media over your home network (LAN), it can connect to your router wirelessly, but for video files it is better to use a wired Ethernet connection. But it will work either way.

Once connected to the network the WD Live will be able to access and play any file on any device that is also connected to the network. This includes PCs, Network Attached Storage (NAS), and any hard drives connected to the router (some routers, but not all, have USB ports). The WD Live has USB ports also. This is why I asked if these hard drives are external drives.

None of this changes any of the advice given to you regarding the hard drive formatting. Jimbo45 has given some excellent options also. Formatting the drives GPT is an excellent choice. That will give you the Advanced Format which is best for video files.

Whether the WD LIve will recognize a GPT disk if it were plugged into it's USB port is not known to me. That piece of the puzzle will require some research (if that is what you want to do).

But if the GPT external drives are plugged into a PC that is on the same network as the WD Live then it will work fine.

thank you for your reply the hard drives are external and not with network , as for gpt etc i dont really know what this is or about what jimbo has advised thanks

TVeblen said:

That's understandable. Let's try and walk through it one thing at a time.

Please answer these questions:

1. Do you have a Router?
2. Do you have a separate router and modem? (Or is it a combo router/modem)
3. Do you connect to the internet wirelessly, or through a network cable?
4. How many computers and other devices do you have connected through the router?
5. Does your TV stand alone, or is it connected to a Home Theater Receiver and speakers?
6. Does your TV and/or Receiver have a wired or wireless network connection?

thank you for your reply and trying to help me i will try and answer your questions
1. we have a router , orange brightbox
3. we connect to the internet by network cable , but can go wireless through laptop
4. we have 2 computers through the router , but we have a laptop and will console that are used wireless
5. the tv is stand alone
6. the tv has a wireless connection
7. broad band speed is around 3 to 4 mbs is this fast enough for Western Digital Live media player

thanks

thank you for your reply and all your help , what we done was to buy a WD TV Live we set this box up , plug in the hard drive with all movies on all though the drive is formatted to fat32 it worked it even saw the movies that did not work before, but we do have some problem with the WD TV Live box , we cannot seem to find where to change the time and there seems to be a update for the firnware should we update the WD TV Live box thank you

thank you for your reply would it still be advisable to change the drive to gpt ntfs as it is working now thanks