Largest hard drive supported

[NRaygun]

Does anyone know of a utility or method to determine the largest drive a given system can support with it's built in IDE interface?

I'm thinking of making a cheap network storage appliance out of an old Dell XPS D300 tower. I want to put in a big drive(250GB?) but I dont know if this system will support it. I'd probably run Linux and Samba(now that I got it working).

Any suggestions?

 

[NRaygun]

Bump-o-rama

 

[EeyoreX]

I am not sure if there is a utility to tell you this or not. Basically, the motherboard needs to support 48-bit LBA. If it was released in the past year or so, it will. If it is older than maybe 3-4 it probably will not. If it is between 2 and 3-4 maybe. One way is too look at BIOS releases and see if they mention 48-bit LBA support as a past update. At any rate, even if the motherboard itself does not support larger drives (ie anything over 128 or 137GB depending) you can always use an add-in PCI controller. Many drives around 200GB come with them (if you buy retail) and if not, they can be found for around $20.

\Dan

 

[VirtualLarry]

I agree with EeyoreX, with one small additional caveat - if the OP is only going to run Linux, then you really don't even need to worry about mobo or PCI IDE card support for 48-bit LBA in the BIOS, since once Linux boots, it doesn't use the BIOS for disk access anyways.

In the case, the workaround would be to make a small (8GB?) root partition, containing the Linux kernel, bootloader, kernel device drivers, and then make additional partitions for /home and swap and /var out of the rest of the space on the HD.

48-bit LBA BIOS is really only a restriction for the DOS/Windows crowd, much like the original LBA BIOS support for HDs larger than 512MiB was.

If you plan on setting up a dual-boot system, possible for Windows' gaming or something, then I would concur with adding a PCI IDE controller card. I just thought that I would mention that you could save some $$$ for a controller card if you were only going to run Linux.

 

[NRaygun]

Thanks VL, that Linux info is great!

I was planning on using Linux for this server with a big o' drive. If I can get past the POST with a big drive, then Linux (RH9) should take care of the rest.

Stay tuned.

 

[EeyoreX]

That's great info VirtualLarry!! Learned something new.

\Dan

 

[NRaygun]

Sure enough, I popped in a 250GB drive and RH9 sees it fine!

Thanks again VL!

Here's another issue: I'm testing transfering data back and forth just to make sure all is well. I notice that if I delete something off of the share, the file still appears in Windows explorer. I have to hit refresh to reflect that the file's been deleted. Seems like explorer doesnt automatically refresh after the delete.

Is there a setting or something somewhere to make Windows XP react like it does on a local drive?

 

[Bucksnort]

Operating System and BIOS Limitations:
Computer operating systems and system BIOSs have separate limitations that are related to
specific drive capacities. The capacity points that can affect how your operating system and system BIOS support your drive are 137GB, 32GB, and 8.4GB. Below is a quick reference chart that you may use as a guide to determine the drive capacity supported by your BIOS.


BIOS Dates prior to May not support drives larger than
Aug 1994 528MB
Feb 1996 2.1GB
Jan 1998 8.4GB
Jun 1999 32GB
137GB (128GB binary) Barrier:
On many systems, the IDE/ATA interface uses a 28-bit addressing which cannot
recognize more than 137GB of storage. To overcome this capacity barrier, drives
higher than this capacity have adopted a 48-bit addressing system which can be supported in newer computer systems with updated controller chips, BIOS codes, and operating system
drivers

 

[NRaygun]

Thanks Bucksnort.

In this case, my old Dell XPS D300 has a BIOS from Jan 1999 and it sees the 250GB drive. And thanks to VirtualLarry, we learned that Linux can overcome the BIOS limitation since Linux appearently doesnt use BIOS for disk access.

So, I have a machine with a BIOS from Jan 1999 that works quite well with a 250GB drive. I've been testing things here and there before I put it into it's final resting place in the basement(next to the Win2k Server).

That lead me to the next issue of Windows explorer not refreshing after a file deletion.