[mythtv-users] Need advice re: expand/replacement storage

[Simon Hobson]

Craig Huff wrote:
> I seem to recall some past threads on the list talking about issues with drives whose capacity is something greater than 1TB, but I don't remember what the threshold was nor what the issue(s) might be..

The threshold is 2TB. Once you hit that then you need to use a "newer" partitioning scheme (ie GUID rather than MBR) and a partitioning tool that supports it. Also, if booting from it, you probably also need to create a small partition just for GRUB to install itself in as there isn't a "safe" gap between boot sectors/partition table and the start fo the first partition as there is with MBR.
> FWIW, my mobo is an ASUS A8N-SLI which supports SATA-I/II
> I'm also concerned with the possibility that I might have issues with SATA-III (6Gb/s) drives working on this system.
> Are they backward compatible with SATA-II?

AFAIK, SATA is all interoperable - the end of each link negotiate for the highest speed they both support and run at that. If the drive does 6Gbps and your controller is limited to 3Gbps, then they will negotiate and run at 3.
> I am considering adding a 2TB WD disk to my system (WD2002FAEX).

Then the partitioning problems do not apply. As already mentioned, you should start your partitions at a multiple of 8 'sectors', while fdisk will default to starting at 63. Since I think all large drives now use 4k sectors on the disk, such a mislignment affects performance.
-- 
Simon Hobson

Visit http://www.magpiesnestpublishing.co.uk/ for books by acclaimed
author Gladys Hobson. Novels - poetry - short stories - ideal as
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-- 
Simon Hobson

Visit http://www.magpiesnestpublishing.co.uk/ for books by acclaimed
author Gladys Hobson. Novels - poetry - short stories - ideal as
Christmas stocking fillers. Some available as e-books.