Does Ubuntu support 3TB or more hard drive sizes

Question

I have a chance of buying thanks to a friend a 3TB hard drive but I have heard a problem about passing the 2TB barrier. Will I be able to boot form it or use it correctly (detected correctly) or is it recommended I use it as a second hard drive to save files but not as the main bootable drive.

Solution

Yes, it does. If you are still booting in a bios based machine and not an EFI one, you need to create a 1MB bios_grub partition when installing ( assuming you are going to boot from this drive ). The partition is required to install the bios based grub on a GPT partitioned disk.

Comments

[Admin]

While I don't know about Ubuntu's support, I don't like anything larger than 500GB, mainly because at that point you have a a lot of data that can disappear when the HDD dies (and it will die!)

[Admin]

jrg - A lof new techologies have arisen to attack this "Will die", "will loose all data" problems. I have 4 1TB hard drives that thanks to that technology they tell me how many bad sectors they have, the temperature, faulty problems, etc.. They even have alerts when the hard drive feels it could die soon, alerting the user to make a full backup as soon as possible. All of this was not available 10 years, 15 years ago. And more features are added to give a level of security to the user. The biggest applied example is dedicated servers with 1TB, 2TB spaces (Not RAID mode) and that says much.

[Admin]

I agree, but I still won't sleep well with a more than 500GB of data on one spindle. But that's just me. :)

[djeikyb]

Can you explain more? What is this bios_grub partition? Do you need it if you will not boot from the 3TB drive? Will the installer prompt you?

[psusi]

Updated answer, no it won't prompt you, which is why I mentioned it.