Partition limits

[GoFigureItOut]

I don't know if this question has been asked/answered before, but I'm curious to know if hard drives have a limit to the total amount of partitions that can be made on them. The PS4, for example, has 15 partitions on its 500 GB hard drive. Let's say someone has a 4 TB ext4 hard drive, what's the maximum amount of partitions that can be made on such a drive?

 

[Kursah]

EXT4 is a filesystem type, like FAT32 and NTFS are...but the hard drive will either be MBR or GPT partition tables. MBR has limitations to 4 partitions unless one is an active logical volume iirc.

Here's some info I Google'd up for you to read:

http://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-the-difference-between-gpt-and-mbr-when-partitioning-a-drive/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc976786.aspx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

http://ntfs.com/guid-part-table.htm

http://trendblog.net/how-to-replace-and-upgrade-your-playstation-4-hard-drive/

That should pretty well cover it!

GPT has fewer restrictions and limitations, and is newer. MBR is older, and has more restrictions or workarounds to defeat some of those restrictions. For many situations and larger hard drives, GPT is the way to go, period.

 

[alucasa]

OP's username is kinda ironic.

 

[m&m's]

Let's say someone has a 4 TB ext4 hard drive, what's the maximum amount of partitions that can be made on such a drive?

A 4TB HDD requires GPT because MBR can't assign more than 2TB and GPT supports 128 partitions.

 

[slozomby]

mbr's 4 partition limit is for primary partitions. you can use one of those as an extended partition and make smaller partitions inside of it. I'm not aware of any limit on the number of partitions an extended partition can contain. the major drawback of mbr is the 2tb limit for drive size.

my understanding of gpt would be sectors/2 for partition limit.

but in reality unless you have a specific need to carve the disks up into tiny chunks, it doesn't make sense to make more than a few partitions.

 

[Jetster]

Don't go partition crazy

The 2.2Tb limit on MBR can be extended on some drives
http://www.seagate.com/tech-insights/advanced-format-4k-sector-hard-drives-master-ti/
MBR on drives that use Advanced Format 4Kn, where the drive exposes its native 4K sector size instead of emulating 512-byte sectors (512e).
This ensures compatibility with devices that do not support GPT by extending the MBR limit to 17.6 TB (16 TiB), thereby avoiding the need to use GPT.

 

[GoFigureItOut]

EXT4 is a filesystem type, like FAT32 and NTFS are...but the hard drive will either be MBR or GPT partition tables. MBR has limitations to 4 partitions unless one is an active logical volume iirc.

Here's some info I Google'd up for you to read:

http://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-the-difference-between-gpt-and-mbr-when-partitioning-a-drive/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc976786.aspx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

http://ntfs.com/guid-part-table.htm

http://trendblog.net/how-to-replace-and-upgrade-your-playstation-4-hard-drive/

That should pretty well cover it!

GPT has fewer restrictions and limitations, and is newer. MBR is older, and has more restrictions or workarounds to defeat some of those restrictions. For many situations and larger hard drives, GPT is the way to go, period.

I confused myself with filesystems and partitions. MBR has a limit of 4 primary partitions. So it's possible to create 3 primary partitions and one extended; then from there make logical parts?

 

[GoFigureItOut]

OP's username is kinda ironic.

You weren't supposed to notice that!

 

[slozomby]

I confused myself with filesystems and partitions. MBR has a limit of 4 primary partitions. So it's possible to create 3 primary partitions and one extended; then from there make logical parts?

yes