NTSF format can only acess 137 gb.
That's not true. Windows 7 supports up to 16TB partitions.
However,, as I understand it,,, there are caveats to this.
For instance, you can not boot a partition larger than 2TB.
Quote from
Source
The following are a few limitations of NTFS:
File NamesFile names are limited to 255
UTF-16 code words. Certain names are reserved in the volume root directory and cannot be used for files. These are: $MFT, $MFTMirr, $LogFile, $Volume, $AttrDef, . (dot), $Bitmap, $Boot, $BadClus, $Secure, $Upcase, and $Extend;
[3] . (dot) and $Extend are both directories; the others are files. The NT kernel limits full paths to 32,767 UTF-16 code words.
Maximum Volume SizeIn theory, the maximum NTFS volume size is 264−1 clusters. However, the maximum NTFS volume size as implemented in Windows XP Professional is 232−1 clusters. For example, using 64
KiB clusters, the maximum NTFS volume size is 256
TiB minus 64 KiB. Using the default cluster size of 4 KiB, the maximum NTFS volume size is 16 TiB minus 4 KiB. (Both of these are vastly higher than the 128 GiB limit lifted in
Windows XP SP1.) Because partition tables on master boot record (MBR) disks only support partition sizes up to 2 TiB, dynamic or
GPT volumes must be used to create bootable NTFS volumes over 2 TiB.
Maximum File SizeTheoretical: 16
EiB minus 1 KiB (264 − 210 or 18,446,744,073,709,550,592 bytes). Implementation: 16 TiB minus 64 KiB (244 − 216 or 17,592,185,978,880 bytes)
That's the over all simple answer,, but not the full answer
There is a lot more info to this than I ahve time to point out or research and explain.
I suggest searching google or bing on this and GPT (GUID Partition Table).
Tepid, nice explanation
For BIOS based (uses MBR) computers, the limit is 2TB which is kinda limited for today. That's why Intel needs to get it acts right and make EFI the "de facto" standard, so that we can boot up off > 2TB volumes (RAID 0 of 2x 1.5TB disks is already ~3TB).
i don't know i think WinFS kinda got killed off. i was surprised that it didn't show up in 7 but now it has been so long since we've heard anything about it i think it's become vaporware.
How does WinFS relate to this? WinFS was not a file system, it sat atop NTFS. It merely was collecting extra data into a database.
WinFS is like an abstraction layer for File Systems, just like HAL for hardware. The idea was, if we have a database driven File System, the role of volume managers will be reduced tremendously, and data grouping (folders) will be obsolete since we will be seeing our data in a "pool", which will be categorized in a way of stacks works (the cool name was "One of the Four Pillars of Longhorn").
At that time I thought, is Microsoft using some part of ZFS to build WinFS? See, ZFS's concept is it's managing a "pool", you can add a storage device to that "pool", it will then take care of it, from which data to be written where, to checksum of each block (to make sure that the data is safely written/stored). And there goes WinFS, Microsoft cancel it, so it's not implemented in Vista (Longhorn). It got thrown to the sides, it was implemented in MS SQL product IIRC, but haven't heard about it since 2-3 years ago...
I also forgot to mention.
If you seriously have that many drives? Then you need to start looking at full blown Servers chassis and racks. And creating full blown Raid 6 arrays.
I would add that if you need more than 23 Drive letters, then you are seriously doing something wrong.
And I appologize if that so0unds rude,, it is not meant to be. Just matter of fact.
I do have that many partitions (the result of bad practice in micro managing disk partitions). What I need is not a server chassis, that would be the old way of thinking. I need a new way to consolidate my data (which is why I found mounting a volume to a folder to be very efficient). I'm currently testing a 4TB ZFS RAIDZ volume over iSCSI, it works very well. From that 4TB volume (1 partition), I can create virtual drive letters if need be (using "subst" command), so that applications that are bound to static addressing using drive letters will not break.
The easiest way to handle this would be to assign each partition based on the drive number.
Drive 0
Partition 1 = 0.1 (0.1:\users for instance)
Partition 2 = 0.2
Drive 1
Partition 1 = 1.1
Partition 2 = 1.2
etc...
This could easily handle 256 (0:256) partitions per drive but can you imagine what the impact would be if the current setup is changed? The hit to the operating system itself would be huge as it would be to all installers and apps that use their own installer.
Backward compatibility would be a nightmare.
Don't mix partition management with drive letters, partition management is at the partition table, you don't need to know the way partition table works, as long as the partition is created and you can
mount it, then you're good to go. There are many limitation on a MBR based partition, IIRC you can only have no more than 4 partition at a time (either it's 4 primaries, or 1 primaries and 1 secondary with 3 logicals). GUID based partition is not bound to this kind of limitation.
BUT, you do have the ability to mount a volume (partition) to a folder, you can have your "D: (Data)" drive letter to be mounted on "C:\Data", that folder will contain your "Data" partition, along with NTFS ACLs etc.
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Here's what I've bumped my head on relating to this drive letter limited realm...
I had so many partition, so many devices, so many remote disks I ran out of drive letters. At that time, well.. it's OK, I can still mount the darn thing in a folder, so it's all good. Then the HUGE problem came, 3 of my disks is dying (~3 years old Seagate Barracudas). Those disks holds 6 partitions in them, if I take them down, I'll have a gaping hole on my drive letters. Not to mention I have my music library (managed by iTunes) scattered all over those 6 partitions. Restoring the music library will be a PITA I thought at that time.
And then came the WDC Caviar Black 1TB drive. At partitioning time I was at a dead end, I can't make 6 partitions on this disk, that won't work... even if I do able to create 6 partitions, it won't take long before I have to use another drive letter to mount my new disk partition to expand my pool of disk storage. THEN it hits me, "Why do I mount it to a drive letter?", I hit my head
Then I partition it using GPT, 1 partition only, created some ~900GB volume. I copy all of my data off 3x dying disks to the new Caviar Black, with "volumename_driveletter" folder format (so drive letter G: holds a volume labeled "Fun" will have "fun_g" as it's folder name), mount the ~900GB volume to a folder, and type this command ==>
Code:
subst g: c:\volumens\1tb_pool\fun_g
And BOOM, a G: drive letter shows up, and it contains the exact same data/folder structure as the original disk, but without the partition limit
By then, I've attached another 1TB disk under "fun_g" folder ("Fun" partition was ~200GB originally), effectively "expanding" the volume to ~1.8 TB shared volume limit (along with other 5 "partitions"). This time, I don't have the "oh shit, I ran out of free space in G:" kind of problem. If I need free space, I attach another disk on it (which the drive G: it self is technically a folder).
You can have almost unlimited number of folders compared to the very small 27 drive letters... Which then made me realize, Drive letters is an old legacy and Microsoft should have just leave it behind.
