Mbr, Gpt And The 5Big Storage Server Operating System; Disk Model And Disk Sectors; Drives With Capacities Greater Than 2Tb - LaCie 5big Storage Server Technical Brief

LaCie Professional Server
Technical Brief: RAID
3.1. MBR, GPT and the 5big Storage
Server Operating System
Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioning has been the hard drive
standard for many years. It supports a maximum of four primary
partitions with a size limit of 2TB per partition. Due to partition limi-
tations in the face of ever-expanding hard disk drive sizes, Global
Unique Identifier Partition Tables (GPT) now allows more partitions
with greater capacities. Further, GPT has additional advantages that
can enhance performance.
Please note that the 5big Storage Server operating system
must run on disks formatted with MBR. If the operating system
is stored on mirrored drives, both disks must be formatted
with MBR.
However, LaCie supports using data drives formatted with GPT.
Switching from MBR to GPT or, conversely, from GPT to MBR, is
not difficult. Please copy all important data to a separate disk be-
fore making the change since adjusting the partition table format is
destructive:
Right-click on My Computer and choose Manage. From the Man-
age window select Disk Management and find your LaCie disk
drive. Right-click on the disk number to choose GPT or MBR.

3.2. Disk Model and Disk Sectors

For optimal performance and to avoid potential conflicts, LaCie rec-
ommends that:
✦ non-LaCie drives used in the 5big enclosure are the same
model.
✦ the disk sectors among the 5big enclosure drives are equal.
Please check the specifications of the disk(s) for further information.
3.3. Drives with Capacities Greater
than 2TB
At the time of this writing, disks larger than 2TB are not tested within
the 5big enclosure. Please note that LaCie cannot support disks
larger than 2TB without evaluating their performance, integrity, and
durability. With greater market adaptation, LaCie will incorporate a
wider range of drives into its rigorous qualification model. Please go
to www.lacie.com for periodic updates on the list of supported LaCie
and non-LaCie hard disks for the 5big enclosure.
The RAID configurations in this Technical Brief assume 1TB or 2TB
drives. Further, the examples include disks with the same capacity.
Administrators are advised to follow the default or recommended
configurations within this Technical Brief and to use two to five disks
of equal capacity within the enclosure.
You may experience problems when installing unsupported drives
in the 5big enclosure. For example, attempting to use one or two
3TB drives in the system mirror. Since the drive(s) must be formatted
with MBR to run Windows Storage Server 2008 on the 5big Storage
Server, the system only recognizes the first 2TB of storage. The ad-
ministrator risks losing 1TB to 2TB of storage capacity.
Certainly, larger capacity external drives are recommended when
backing up the 5big Storage Server data via the USB 2.0 and eSATA
ports. Make certain to format external backup drives with capacities
greater than 2TB using GPT.
IMPORTANT INFO: LaCie cannot guarantee compatibility, per-
formance, or reliability when using non-LaCie disks that have not
been tested with the 5big enclosure.
5big Enclosure: Disk Install
page 6