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4TB SATA drive and Windows 10

BJBBJB
Level 7
Greetings. I am finally getting around to swapping out one of my 2TB Barracuda data drives (so no OS on there) for a 4TB drive.

Do I remember correctly that there is a bios setting or something I need to do special with setup if I go over 2TB or is that old news?
Or is it just a difference between which SATA controller bank I plug it into? I am sure when I setup my drives I used the faster controller for my data drives. It was a while ago....

Hopefully I am wrong about the 4TB concern and this is old news but just wanted to check. My plan is to format the new 4TB drive in a HDD USB external caddy, copy over my files (or I can restore a trueimage 2TB image to the unformatted drive and then expand the partition but less hassle just to format as 4TB and then copy the files?), and then shutdown and swap the drives. I understand I may have to go into computer management and re-assign the right drive letter.

Does this plan sound good? Any suggestions on the copy files plan vs. restoring an image?

I like to over-plan and under-mess-up 😄

Thanks,


BJBBJB
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2 REPLIES 2

xeromist
Moderator
I don't think you should have any issues. Boot drives are more complicated. And as long as you don't nuke your source drive you can always take another shot at it if you don't like the result. Another option you have is if you don't have anything installed on there that will be cranky getting moved you could swap the drives first and copy from USB.
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xeromist wrote:
I don't think you should have any issues. Boot drives are more complicated. And as long as you don't nuke your source drive you can always take another shot at it if you don't like the result. Another option you have is if you don't have anything installed on there that will be cranky getting moved you could swap the drives first and copy from USB.


Thanks. I must have been having old windows version flashbacks about that 4TB limit...:)
I found it! Old bios and MBR format is 2TB or so limit. UEFI bios and GPT initialization for over 2TB support.

BJBBJB