I'm thinking of installing Linux on a second hard drive alongside Windows. Are there capacity limits I should worry about with drives over 20 TB, like the old 2 TB limit?
Can Linux recognize a hard drive larger than 20 TB?
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A current Linux system can handle a drive over 20 TB. The old 2 TB issue is commonly associated with MBR partition tables, not a general Linux limit. Use GPT when partitioning a large disk.
There are separate limits for the partition table and filesystem, so those choices matter more than the operating system alone.
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For a Linux installation, ext4 is a reasonable filesystem choice. Its maximum filesystem size depends on how it's configured, but it can support volumes far larger than 20 TB. Maximum individual file size is a separate limit from total volume size.
If you want Windows to access data on the drive too, check filesystem compatibility before formatting it rather than assuming both systems can use the same partitions.
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You don't need to dedicate a huge drive to the Linux boot partition just because you have one. You could make a smaller system partition and use the remaining space for data, or leave some unallocated until you know what you need.
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8e_idx:
Back up anything you care about before changing partitions. Installing on a second disk still means paying close attention to which disk the installer is modifying.