I've mentioned this in other threads, but this portion of this needs some clarification so people know what they should be asking from Apple.
Apple's firmware is based on the Intel EFI 1.10 spec, but Windows Vista, 7, 8, x86_64 require UEFI 2.x. Some people are working on hacks that allow Windows 7/8 to boot using Apple's existing EFI. But for mortal users not into hacking, Apple's EFI is non-standard and won't EFI boot Windows.
Thus, Apple has for some time provided a CSM-BIOS. BIOS requires MBR partition scheme. MBR has a 2TB disk limit. Not a partition limit, a disk limit. So for booting Windows, we're stuck with 2TB or smaller disks until Apple's firmware is updated to comply with whatever it is Windows expects, in order to UEFI boot instead of depending on the CSM-BIOS. At which point only GPT partition scheme is needed, which doesn't have this limitation.
NTFS and HFS+ can support rather large file systems, so this is not an NTFS or HFS+ issue.
This is a boot limitation. You could do a minimal Windows installation on a smaller disk, and point Windows to a much larger 2nd disk (which is not a boot disk) and it will honor GPT partition scheme and of course much large disk sizes. So you can use a 2-4TB disk for Windows, just not as a boot disk.
Thank you for pointing this out and Yes, I agree with you for the most part, and the phrasing possibly could have been a little bit better,
but the focus here was to point out the limitations of said items
and point out the growing respective limitations, as the needs of the user grow and expand to beyond those limitations! As well as the question of why use a FAT32 partition on a drive and/or any other drive formatted in FAT32 to access files between OSX and Windows!
1) Those limitations at the time of the format creation where not an issue as the PC system file sizes and drive sizes where much smaller, and we did not store huge files on them (Many years ago mainframes where used to do these kind of projects!) But the development and implementation of newer OS's
Mac OSX 10.7.0-10.8.0, or Windows 7-8, etc
and the Pro Software packages like
AutoCAD, Revit, 3ds Max, SolidWorks, CATIA, Chief Architect, RISA, Xactimate, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, Visio, FCP, Aperture, CS5-CS6 Master Collection, and the all the project-files they create
meaning any very large A-V files and/or any of the aforementioned can easily create very large files in the tens/hundreds of GB-TB and storage space is consumed very quickly!
2) JoelBC was asking about Mac-OSX & Windows use on one machine
as he is a Windows based professional (Not just an average end-user) wanting to learn more and get the most out of the two different platforms!
3) The FAT32 Format common access to read-write with each OS with-out third-party SW packages... Which is the reason for using it
as well as the need for and reason of posting this comment!
4) I was not asking anything from Apple or Microsoft, just answering the question about why a FAT32 formatted drive!
5) Yes, the average consumer checking email, browser searching, small iTunes Libraries, picture-video editing and storage to upload on FB-YT may not need a lot of storage space, ("Mere Mortals not into Hacking")
but if they are using large iTunes Libraries (Mine is over 768GB of just Music, and the Video files are in the hundreds of GB-TB) for Home Network Streaming or Using any of the Pro Software packages, those file sizes and storage can be well
a quandary wrapped-up in a conundrum!
--------------------
"I've mentioned this in other threads, but this portion of this needs some clarification so people know what they should be asking from Apple.
Apple's firmware is based on the Intel EFI 1.10 spec, but Windows Vista, 7, 8, x86_64 require UEFI 2.x. Some people are working on hacks that allow Windows 7/8 to boot using Apple's existing EFI. But for mortal users not into hacking, Apple's EFI is non-standard and won't EFI boot Windows.
Thus, Apple has for some time provided a CSM-BIOS. BIOS requires MBR partition scheme. MBR has a 2TB disk limit. Not a partition limit, a disk limit. So for booting Windows, we're stuck with 2TB or smaller disks until Apple's firmware is updated to comply with whatever it is Windows expects, in order to UEFI boot instead of depending on the CSM-BIOS. At which point only GPT partition scheme is needed, which doesn't have this limitation.
NTFS and HFS+ can support rather large file systems, so this is not an NTFS or HFS+ issue.
This is a boot limitation. You could do a minimal Windows installation on a smaller disk, and point Windows to a much larger 2nd disk (which is not a boot disk) and it will honor GPT partition scheme and of course much large disk sizes. So you can use a 2-4TB disk for Windows, just not as a boot disk."
1) Again the point was to focus on the limitations of the "BootDrive's (MBR) limitations"
not the NTFS and HFS+ storage capacity limitations! It is a "HTFS BootDrive MBR Limitation Issue" it is not a "StorageDrive Limitation Issue"!
2) NTFS (MBR) does have "Partition Limits (4)" as well as "2TB Boot Disk Limitations" depending on the OS ver. used!
3) Another note
NTFS and HFS+ both do have "Partition Limits" as well as "Storage Drive Limitations" depending on the 32bit vs 64bit versions. That is why the 64bit OS is able to access larger drive sizes and larger RAM sizes, as the users needs grow, the system has to as well
all about the need to accommodate the user requirements!
4) This is not just an Apple-Mac-Windows PC issue, as it is a Microsoft-Windows PC issue as well
that is why they developed the GPT format! The MBR limitations of 2TB is exactly why the GPT format was created to remove those limitations. But since OSX can't format a drive or disk to GPT format
with-out third party software, that is another issue, the drive has to be formatted with a machine that can format the disk to GPT or have the third party software installed before formatting the disk!
5) Also the MBP 13"/15"/17" have only one HDD/SSD unless the optical drive is replaced using a data doubler or similar hardware solution to install another HDD/SSD in its place, which then the OS can be re-directed to store in another location using symbolic links (OSX) or store-in (Windows)! I personally run my MBP17" like this
the main drive-bay has 480GB/512GB SSD and the optical drive-bay has a 960GB/1TB SSD in a DD for storage! The point is I have OSX 10.7.4 / Windows 7 Ultimate x64 and all their Apps on the Main SSD and the stored data files on the Storage/Slave SSD.
(1,495,339 files to date as of the last virus scan and growing
just on that one MBP, that doesn't include all the media files, project files and other data, etc
and back-up files on external storage devices!)
6) The new rMBP has no options to expand it internally at this time and if/or when they do come up with that solution it will be very expensive for quite a while! So looks like external storage only, at least for a while,
so order it Maxed-Out!
7) Please re-read the posting as it does speak about the MBR issue
and the not sure why you thought it was a partition limit vs a disk limit, as the article clearly notes
Most operating systems do not have a 2TB limitation, however the master boot record structure (MBR) used to partition the disk could!
Windows Users:
Win XP 32-bit and Win2K do not support volumes greater than 2TB.
Win x64, 64-bit operating systems do, but in order to create volumes bigger than 2TB from these operating systems, you must convert the disk to GPT file system.
the article continues
Note: Disk devices with more than 2 TB of disk space must be converted to GPT format for all of the disk space to be usable. If the device uses MBR format, the disk space beyond 2 TB will be unusable.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463528.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg463525.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/GPT_FAQ.msp
Perhaps I could have written it like this for better clarity
and that posting has been edited to reflect this!
The NTFS Boot Drive's
Master Boot Record (MBR) is limited to 2TB drive sizes, and HFS+ Boot Drive is limited to 3TB drive sizes (4TB Drives sometimes format to much less than 4TB's,
generally 2TB to 3.5TB, these drives cannot make use of the whole 4TB due to format limitations of the MBR of that drive, and even if installed in a new machine to use the 4TB dives they have to be formatted in ???).
This article describes changes in Windows operating systems that will support disk logical unit sizes larger than 2 TB.
In past editions, Windows used 32-bit block numbers in the lower storage stack. This effectively limited support for single disk devices-which might be hardware RAID sets, sometimes called virtual disks or LUNs-to being no larger than 2 terabytes (TB). To get storage unit sizes beyond 2 TB, one had to combine multiple LUNs using the Volume Manager, leading to a volume limit of 64 TB with RAID0 or spanning or 62 TB with RAID5. RAID1 was also limited to 2 TB. The use of Volume Manager sets, however, imposes a performance penalty and can make some storage management scenarios difficult or impossible.
In contrast, the file system uses a 64-bit signed byte offset. This means that the absolute file system limit is actually 254 512-byte blocks. However, NTFS reduces this, because it supports a 32-bit cluster number * 64K per cluster maximum, which equals 256 TB.
Another complicating factor was the use of Master Book Record (MBR) partition types, which can only contain up to 232 blocks. GUID Partition Tables (GPT) can support a much larger number of blocks, but Windows only supported GPT on Intel Itanium machines.
Note: Microsoft recommends that for Windows Server 2003, basic disks should use 512-byte sectors (dynamic disks will only work with 512-byte sectors). Windows Vista and later operating systems will support up to 4-KB sector sizes.
Windows Support for Logical Units Larger than 2 TB
With Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows XP 64-bit Edition (x64), these limits have changed.
Microsoft added support for 64-bit block numbers in the disk/class layer, using the new SCSI Commands included in the SCSI-3 Block Commands-2 command set. Microsoft also enabled GPT support for all Windows Server 2003 SP1 platforms. With this change, for example, a snapshot of a GPT partition on an Itanium-based machine can now be transported to a 32-bit machine for data mining or archiving purposes.
The new limits are as follows:
Basic or dynamic volume size: 264 blocks = 273 bytes (too big to pronounce)
Maximum NTFS file system size that can be realized on Windows: 256 TB
Note: Disk devices with more than 2 TB of disk space must be converted to GPT format for all of the disk space to be usable. If the device uses MBR format, the disk space beyond 2 TB will be unusable.
~The use of Virtual Machine SW such as VMware Fusion, Parallels, VirtualBox, Virtual PC
etc, sometimes do not like more than two partitions per drive or sometimes have difficulty utilizing three+ partitions per drive.
The different file systems used by all OS's have continually been challenged, as HD sizes get larger and larger
FAT32 is from W95 or a long time ago when the drives that used them were much smaller,
NTFS and HFS+ are also becoming outdated as the newer technology and size of SSD/HDD's increase. The NTFS Boot Drive's
Master Boot Record (MBR) is limited to 2TB drive sizes, and HFS+ Boot Drive is limited to 3TB drive sizes (4TB Drives sometimes format to much less than 4TB's,
generally 2TB to 3.5TB, these drives cannot make use of the whole 4TB due to format limitations of the MBR of that drive, and even if installed in a new machine to use the 4TB dives they have to be formatted in ???).
Just like 32bit versions of Windows cannot access & execute more than 3GB RAM even if 4GB is installed & recognized!
7) Please Note The Sentence
The PDF mentioned in the following paragraph that is speaking about the MBR is straight from the Microsoft website!
** This is from an older PDF downloaded from the "Microsoft Website" awhile back **
it speaks a little about OS disk formatting, Master Boot Record (MBR) and file system partition limitations
Most operating systems do not have a 2TB limitation, however the master boot record structure (MBR) used to partition the disk could. A 32-bit operating systems memory is managed by addresses. Hence a 32-bit OS will have 2^32 addressable locations. Most disks have a standard 512 bytes per sector. Doing the math 2^32 * 512 = 2TB (2,199,023,255,040) is the maximum limit.
Several methods of exceeding the 2TB limit of a single volume exist:
A) If you are attaching the drive to a RAID controller that will partition and format the drive to present to the OS please contact the RAID controller manufacturer. You will only need to contact them if the boot partition of this drive will be larger than 2TB.
B) Use GUID Partition Tables (GPT) volumes available when using Windows Server 2003 /w SP1, Windows XP x64, Windows Vista or later versions.
C) Create 2TB partitions and use dynamic disks and spanning to aggregate the total available space. Spanned disks are capable of capacities up to 64TB.
See Partitions and Volumes for Disk Spanning information:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd163559.aspx
This 2TB limitation is normally not an issue as not many people boot from their large data arrays. Large data arrays are most often used for data storage, video files, picture libraries, and music libraries. Not as the primary boot device.
Since MBR disks are capable of containing four partitions, even if none of the above options work, you can create multiple partitions on a disk. Each partition capable of containing 2TB still allows 8TB on a single disk. Using spanning options within the OS you can create a single large spanned volume to present to the OS.
Only Windows Vista Enterprise and Windows Vista Ultimate editions support dynamic disks.
Note: A spanned (extended) volume is actually less reliable than a simple disk. Unlike a mirror or RAID-5 volume, which both have built-in redundancy, a spanned or striped volume will be broken and all data lost if any disk in the volume fails.
Please see your RAID controller manufacturers website for RAID controller limitations, RAID controller firmware upgrades and/or driver updates.
Windows Users:
Win XP 32-bit and Win2K do not support volumes greater than 2TB.
Win x64, 64-bit operating systems do, but in order to create volumes bigger than 2TB from these operating systems, you must convert the disk to GPT file system.
Note: Disk devices with more than 2 TB of disk space must be converted to GPT format for all of the disk space to be usable. If the device uses MBR format, the disk space beyond 2 TB will be unusable.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463528.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg463525.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/GPT_FAQ.msp
FAT 32
FAT (File Allocation Table) Originally, FAT was only 16 bits, the second release of Windows 95 it was 32 bits (FAT 32). In theory, FAT 32 volume sizes can range from less than 1MB all the way to 2TB. It is the native file system of Win 98, Win ME, and additionally it is supported by Win 2K, Win XP, and Vista. When FAT 32 is used with Windows, the volume size is limited to 32GB (by the Windows partition utility, i.e. Disk Manager), and file size is limited to 4GB.
Use FAT 32 (MS-DOS) if you will be sharing the drive between Windows 2000 and Windows XP or Windows Vista. Maximum single file size is 4GB.
NTFS
New Technology Filing System is the native file system for Win NT, Win 2K, Win XP, and Vista. Several new features are available with NTFS, i.e. file compression, encryption, permissions, and auditing, as well as the ability to mirror drives and RAID 5 capabilities. A maximum of 2TB Partition size when initialized in MBR format. Volumes created in NTFS can only be accessed by Win NT, Win 2K, Win XP, and Vista without additional third-party products.
Using NTFS with Win 2K, Win XP, or Vista will increase performance when compared to FAT 32.
See Windows 2TB Boot Partition Limitation:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946557
GPT
In theory, a GPT disk can be up to 2^64 logical blocks in length. Logical blocks are commonly 512 bytes in size.
Win Server 2003 SP1, Win XP x64 edition, and later versions, the maximum raw partition of 18 exabytes can be supported. (Windows file systems currently are limited to 256 terabytes each.)
See Windows and GPT FAQs:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/GPT_FAQ.msp
For a partial list of verified controllers, please go to
www.wdc.com/support.
