Re: How many drives does XP 2003 Pro support

From: BR549 (spamspam_at_spam.com)
Date: 11/15/04 

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:54:01 GMT

A minor correction about FAT32 and NTFS taken from the Microsoft KB:
FAT32 Features
FAT32 provides the following enhancements over previous implementations of
the FAT file system: . FAT32 supports drives up to 2 terabytes in size.

      NOTE: Microsoft Windows 2000 only supports FAT32 partitions up to a
size of 32 GB.

Removing Limitations
First, NTFS has greatly increased the size of files and volumes, so that
they can now be up to 2^64 bytes (16 exabytes or 18,446,744,073,709,551,616
bytes). NTFS has also returned to the FAT concept of clusters in order to
avoid HPFS problem of a fixed sector size. This was done because Windows NT
is a portable operating system and different disk technology is likely to be
encountered at some point. Therefore, 512 bytes per sector was viewed as
having a large possibility of not always being a good fit for the
allocation. This was accomplished by allowing the cluster to be defined as
multiples of the hardware's natural allocation size. Finally, in NTFS all
filenames are Unicode based, and 8.3 filenames are kept along with long
filenames.

"BAR" <BAR@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:14165E55-243B-4916-AB9B-A5809B284F22@microsoft.com...
XP Drive Management

. Windows XP supports up to four partitions per hard disk.
. Windows XP supports two main partition TYPES: Primary and Extended.
. Windows XP supports three file systems NTFS, FAT32 and FAT [the latter 2
being introduced with earlier Windows systems].
. A primary partition is one from which one can boot up an Operating System.
. All four partitions can be designated as Primary [or bootable, should one
wish to install more than one Operating System, such as XP, 98, Linux etc].
. One primary partition at a time must be marked as 'Active' designating it
as the one from which the computer will boot: in almost all cases this
should
be the 'C-Drive'.
. One partition can be allocated as an Extended Partition. These differ in
that they are not formatted with a file system or assigned a specific drive
letter ['D', thru to 'Z'].
. An Extended Partition is then a dedicated area of disk space in which one
can then create a number of Logical Drives.
. Logical Drives are similar to primary partitions in that they are
individually formatted with a file system and assigned a drive letter: thus
an extended partition can have an unlimited number of Logical Drives each
with its own drive letter, none of the Logical drives is bootable.
. Use for logical drives can be to assign a specific drive letter [logical
drive] for each file type [word document, email, MP3] or on a computer with
many users, one or more logical drive per user.
. Of the file systems, NTFS is the most versatile and the newest, with a 32
bit address structure which gives it the ability to access the very large
disk drives available now [200Gb drives generally available] and in the
future.
. Limitations for each file system are:
o FAT - only addresses up to 4Gb of disk space [Windows XP, 95 and earlier
Windows versions only]
o FAT32 - only addresses up to 32Gb of disk space [Windows XP, Me 98 and 95
Second Edition]
o NTFS - addresses up to 2,000Gb of disk space [Windows XP]
. One would use a partitioned hard drive formatted as FAT32 or FAT should
one wish to accommodate a dual boot system [running XP or an earlier
Operating System].
. Should one have Windows XP Pro, a further benefit of NTFS is that files
can be encrypted.

"assignor" wrote:

> Assuming extra cards are installed, how many drives will XP 2003 Pro
> support?
> Physical, Logical or partitions?
> I am aware of the 256 (cluster) terabyte limit depending on cluster size.
> I just read a support doc that said it was still 4 channels with 8 drives
> like win98. Can't be true.
> Thanks

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