How much more hard drive space can I add?
Thanks Jon

That's an awful lot of information to loose when 1 hard drive goes bad. (-:

Regards,
Richard Urban Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User (For email, remove the obvious from my address)
Quote from George Ankner: If you knew as much as you think you know, You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
"Jon"

They would take some backing up too, eh.. I still use 80's :-)
"Richard Urban"

Mike Hall MS MVP Windows Shell/User msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

Hi, Jon.
How many power connectors and data connectors does your computer have? Any USB ports, where one or many USB external drives might be connected? You can keep adding hard drives until you run out of connectors - or money! Vista can handle as many hard drives as you can connect, I suspect.
Remember that maximum storage capacity is determined by the File System (FATx or NTFS), not by the Operating System (MS-DOS, Windows or Vista). The NTFS file system limit is explained here:
How NTFS Works technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/library/8cc5891d-bf8e-4164-862d-dac5418c59481033.mspx?mfr=true
It says the maximum NTFS volume size is, "Implementation: 256 terabytes minus 64 KB ( 232 clusters minus 1 cluster)". But we can have multiple hard drives and put multiple volumes on each hard drive, so I don't think Vista is worried about running out of room for a few years.
RC R. C. White, CPA San Marcos, TX rc grandecom.net Microsoft Windows MVP (Running Windows Mail in Vista Ultimate x64)
"Jon"

You might want to slip in one or more of these babys. lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10351 "Jon"

There may be some limitation, but I'm guessing you'd run out of money before you reached it. With Vista, and earlier Windows, you could have drives C: through Z: and also mount drives as folders into existing drives letters. So with both USB and Fire wire, as well as SATA inside, you could easily have a few dozen of the 750GB drives. Then there is RAID, where you could have five drives as one drive letter.
I have two of those same Seagate 750GB drives as my P: (pictures) and V: (video) drives. I opted for higher performance in general with a 10K RPM 150GB C: drive. I also have three of the Seagate 750GB drives as externals for use as video storage on two other PCs here.
Bye.
"Jon"

And I remember in 1993 when a college said to me, "A one Gig hard drive. How would you ever fill it?" He had just read about the technology in a computer magazine.

Regards,
Richard Urban Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User (For email, remove the obvious from my address)
Quote from George Ankner: If you knew as much as you think you know, You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
"David Sommers"

In article , Jon says...

Conor
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........

That article was for Windows server 2003 is NTFS the same for all flavors of Windows?
I thought that Windows XP NTFS limit was 2.5 TBs. Every time I tried to add a usb hard to one of my Windows XP PCs that had 2.25 TB on it would always lose one of the other hard drives. That is why I upgraded to Vista.
Ps I have a Media work area for my wifes work and entertainment for my family with 1 Mac, 3 Windows MC (1 XP 2 Vista), Media server (dual boot Windows XP and WHS beta), 6 Windows XP laptops and 1 Windows XP tablet. Jon
"R. C. White, MVP" wrote:

Hi, Jon.
Did you read the whole article? Or at least, down to NTFS Size Limits? Yes, it mentions some special features for the new server version of Windows, and there are a few comments that apply to only certain Windows versions, but most of it applies to all operating systems that use NTFS.
Wow! You have a LOT of PC power! ;<) And you probably already knew most of what we've told you. But that article should help you fill in any gaps. The answer to your question still depends on the physical capacity of your computer. NTFS in Vista should be able to handle over 200 TB - per VOLUME. And you can have multiple volumes on each hard drive, of course, so Vista should be able to handle several exabytes on a single disk - theoretically, of course.

No. My hard copy of the Windows XP Resource Kit says (p. 543), "...the maximum NTFS volume size as implemented in Windows XP Professional is 2^32 clusters minus 1 cluster. For example, using 64-KB clusters, the maximum NTFS volume size is 256 terabytes minus 64 KB. Using the default cluster size of 4 KB, the maximum NTFS volume size is 16 terabytes minus 4 KB." You can read the complete WinXP Pro RK online at microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/c13621675.mspx; I haven't seen the Vista RK yet.

Some other limitation in your computer must have been causing that problem. I haven't tried a USB HD, so I don't know about the limits on that. Did all the drives show up in Disk Management? I've used only the Professional version of WinXP; there may be smaller size limits if you were using a different version.
RC R. C. White, CPA San Marcos, TX rc grandecom.net Microsoft Windows MVP (Running Windows Mail in Vista Ultimate x64)
"Jon"

"Jon"

I wouldn't have thought the file system size was the issue there. I believe the size limit for NTFS file systems refers to a partition, not every partition on every disk that you happen to have plugged in. I'm interested to hear if I'm right or wrong on that now.
One thing with disks, which you're probably all too aware of but I'll throw in anyway, is power concerns. The more drives you add internally, the more power will be drawn from the system's PSU.

"Richard Urban" wrote:

LOL I remember selling 10 MEG not GIG mfm drives and looking the client dead in the face in all seriousness and saying, "this is 100 million keystrokes, do you really think you will ever fill this up."
I actually remember when dual 5.25 floppies was a BIG deal and yes I do also remember the 8" floppies and 20 meg diskpacks that were the size of a stack of 5 pickup truck tires.
Now our operating systems alone use 10 meg and that is a light version! :)
Just a little reminiscing from the old fart. Back to your regularly scheduled tech meetings. :)
Cecil

"Cecil" -snip-

You meant 10 gig, right? :0)
Captain Roberts

"Captain Roberts" wrote:

Be well
Cecil

Had compaies like Microsoft worked to keep their software small, fast and code efficient we would probably still be using smaller hard drives. However, software and the OSes have bloated like a dead whale laying on a beach. That is why we are now approaching the need for 1TB drive systems. Lets face it today's programming langauges and the attitudes of companies is that storage is cheap so who cares of a photo viewer needs 1GB of hard drive space.
Somebody!