up vote 3 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

I have a 3 year old PC with 4 internal SATA ports. My old SATA hard drives, all smaller than 2TB, work fine. If I buy a 3TB SATA hard drive, will it work in Linux? Will Linux with GRUB be able boot from such a hard drive without a BIOS upgrade? With a BIOS upgrade? It's fine for me to upgrade my Linux to the newest kernel.

link|improve this question
65% accept rate
3  
The kernel isn't the problem. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams May 14 '11 at 12:17
feedback

1 Answer

up vote 5 down vote

Here are some hints that come to mind:

  • You need an OS and drivers for your hardware (controller) that know how to handle 64-bit sector numbers
  • Use the GUID Partition Table (GPT) (64-bit sector numbers).
  • The Linux boot loader grub2 can boot from GPTs (without UEFI bios)
  • I would put the boot and root partitions below the 2 TB mark.

Well, I'm not so sure if it is worth the trouble to try it with old hardware.

(Also, if the 3 TB hard drive uses the 4 kb sectors make sure to use the right partition alignment!)

link|improve this answer
Thank you for this useful information. I'm still interested in if I have to do a BIOS upgrade (which I want to avoid). Is a BIOS upgrade necessary for loading GRUB2 from the first 2 TB? – pts May 15 '11 at 10:16
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.