XXHighEnd

Ultimate Audio Playback => Music Storage and convenient playback => Topic started by: PeterSt on December 05, 2007, 09:54:40 am



Title: Spanned Windows Volumes ... maybe not
Post by: PeterSt on December 05, 2007, 09:54:40 am

This is just a warning for those struggeling with their amounts of data, and it all not fitting on one HDD :

From of the next version (0.9t) there is no good reason to "span" harddisks to one large volume. And in fact, it would be wrong strategy. Why ?

There may come a time that you bump into over 2TB of data. Now, at least for Vista/32 it must be assumed impossibe to create a (spanned) volume of over 2TB by means of normal Windows Disk Management (external RAID solutions is another matter).

Note : I was warned in advance that it could not work, and as ignorant as I am, I did not believe it. Instead I tried to prove by means of Google that it can or cannot work, and came up with "can" only, or anyway no proof at all of the opposite.
And thus I tried ... 8)

So be warned : When you attempt to create a volume larger then 2TB, most probably starting off with existing data like a spanned 2 x 1TB harddisk and then adding a third, you *will* loose your data.

At first all looks okay, but after a reboot the volume can't be mounted anymore, and there is no (normal Windows) way of getting it back.
Yes, I used the GUID partioning, and since all tells it should work, I guess it's just a bug and nobody tried (or reported it on the Internet, and  where more "normal" situations of large data would be setup by means of RAID).


More arguments not to do it :

Spanned volumes are more dangerous for loosing data than normal volumes, like RAID volumes are even more dangerous.
Then, with the upcoming 0.9t there's really no need to do it, since XXHighEnd will create one logical volume from all the disks you appoint.

Peter