LaCie 301385U User Manual - page 20
LaCie 4big Quadra Enterprise Class
• D
esign
by
n
eil
P
oulton
RAID
User Manual
page 20
3.4. Formatting and Partitioning
The4bigQuadracomespre-formattedinHFS+(optimizedforMac
OSX).Pleasereadthefollowinginformationonfilesystemformats
forWindowsandMacoperatingsystemstodetermineifyouneedto
reformatthe4big’sdisks.Seesections
3.4.2
and
3.4.3
forformat-
tinginstructions.
3.4.1. File System Formats
Windows Users
TECHNICAL NOTE:
TheLaCie4bigQuadracomespreformatted
inHFS+foroptimumperformancewithMacOSX.
TECHNICAL NOTE:
WindowsXP32-bitdoesnotsupportvolumes
greaterthan2TB.WindowsXPx64,WindowsVista(32-and64-bit
versions),andWindows7(32-and64-bitversions)do,butinorder
tocreatevolumesbiggerthan2TBfromtheseoperatingsystems,you
mustconvertthedisktoGPTfilesystem.Thisprocessisoutlinedin
3.4.2
.
FAT32
:FATisanacronymforFileAllocationTable,whichdatesback
tothebeginningsofDOSprogramming.Originally,FATwasonly16
bits,butafterthesecondreleaseofWindows95itwasupgradedto32
bits,hencethenameFAT32.Intheory,FAT32volumesizescanrange
fromlessthan1MBallthewayto2TB.ItisthenativefilesystemofWin-
dows98andWindowsMe,andissupportedbyWindows2000,Win-
dowsXP,WindowsVista,andWindows7.WhenFAT32isusedwith
Windows2000,WindowsXP,WindowsVista,andWindows7though,
volumesizeislimitedto32GB(bytheWindowspartitionutility,i.e.Disk
Manager),andtheindividualfilesizeislimitedto4GB.
NTFS:
ThisacronymstandsforNewTechnologyFilingSystem,and
itisthenativefilesystemforWindowsNT,Windows2000,Windows
XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. NTFS offers several features
thatarenotavailablewithFAT32;i.e.filecompression,encryption,
permissions,andauditing,aswellastheabilitytomirrordrivesand
RAID5capabilities.TheminimumsupportedvolumesizeforNTFS
is10MB,withamaximumof2TBwheninitializedinMBRformat
or without a limit when initialized in GPT format, with no limit to
file size. Volumes created in NTFS can only be directly accessed
(notthroughshares)byWindowsNT,Windows2000,WindowsXP,
WindowsVista,andWindows7withoutresortingtohelpfromthird-
partyproducts.
Windows File System Formats
TherearetwopossiblefilesystemformatcategoriesforWin-
dowsusers:NTFSandFAT32(MS-DOS).Seethetablebe-
lowformoreinformation.
Use NTFS if:
...youwillbeusingthedriveonlywithWindowsXP,Windows
Vista,andWindows7(performancewillgenerallybegreater
whencomparedtoFAT32).Thisfilesystemiscompatiblein
readonlymodewithMacOS10.3andhigher.
Use FAT32 if:
...youwillbeusingyourdrivewithbothWindowsandMac
OS9.xor10.x.Maximumsinglefilesizeis4GB.