will FreeNAS be able to use 4TB hard disk on ASUS P5QSE motherboard with non-EFI bios?

[mark.farnell]

I have a desktop computer with the ASUS P5Q SE motherboard, which has a non-EFI bios. This computer is installed with 8GB DDR2 RAM.

I plan to convert this computer to a NAS by adding 4TB drives and running FreeNAS. However, if the motherboard BIOS does not support EFI, then will FreeNAS 9.2.1 be able to use these 4TB hard drives?

I need to decide whether it is feasible for me to convert the computer to NAS in the future, as my plan is to first buy a pair of 4TB drives, and then when larger drives (say 8TB or 16 TB) becomes affordable, then I will buy another pair of these larger drives.

Thanks!

Mark

 

[pirateghost]

what does EFI have to do with 4tb hard drives?

 

[mark.farnell]

what does EFI have to do with 4tb hard drives?

If BIOS does not support EFI, then the hard disk can only be partitioned with MBR, and is it true that MBR cannot support partitions > 2.2TB?

If so, then does FreeNAS have any ways to make use of the entire capacity of drives that are larger than 2.2TB?

 

[pirateghost]

Not true at all. That is only the case if you need to boot from a device greater than 2.2tb

You can use greater than 2.2tb on nonefi boards. The board only matters when it boots from the device.

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

[mark.farnell]

Not true at all. That is only the case if you need to boot from a device greater than 2.2tb

You can use greater than 2.2tb on nonefi boards. The board only matters when it boots from the device.

Sent from my Nexus 5

So FreeNAS boots from a USB stick or a CDROM, *not* from hard disk, right?

If true, then does it mean that I can feel free to plug 8TB or 16TB drives onto my non-efi motherboard, as long as these drives are SATA 3 compliant? This will be good news, as this means I can continue to use my desktop computer as a NAS indefinitely until component failure :)

 

[krikboh]

Your bigger concern is the lack of ECC RAM. You will be at risk of losing your data with that system.

 

[pirateghost]

It would be good for you to read the documentation that covers the hardware requirements and recommendations

Sent from my Nexus 5