Sooner or later, you'll find yourself saying: Ya' know, 2,199,023,255,552 bytes (also known as 2TB) of data on one hard drive is just not enough for me - I need more, lots more.

Well, first the good news - hard disk drive prices have dropped significantly, and if you REALLY have a lot of data, even the 16TB network attached storage (NAS) drives with enterprise drives are coming in at a pretty good price these days.

Network Attached Storage (NAS) drives and enclosures use RAID to provide data redundancy and error checking, and to provide a very large storage capacity.

There is at least one caveat though - you need to move on from Windows XP or older operating systems. Windows XP hits the 2TB limit of the MBR (Master Boot Record) format drives.

Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and OS X are all capable of using the more advanced disk formatting that trades in the 512 byte blocks for 4,096 byte (4KB) blocks as well as the GPT (GUID Partition Table) format that breaks through the 2.1TB limit. This change allows for much greater storage on a single hard drive.

One other gotcha that you may not be aware of, and which we found out the hard way - some of the external adapters for hard disk drives ALSO have a limit. So here at the store we wasted several hours troubleshooting a 3TB drive when it was really the SATA / USB adapter that had the issue.

USB drive adapters (or their drivers) could have drive size limitations. If you are having problems detecting a large capacity drive attached to an adapter or drive enclosure, don't assume it's defective hardware. Double check supported hardware on the manufacturer's site or look to see if a new device driver is available. Don't forget, your operating system must be able to support the drive capacity as well!

In summary, the hardware and software have to be in synch with each other to support the larger capacity drives. At one time we saw the 137GB limit, before that it was the 32GB limit, and if you go further back there was not only a 2GB limit but - brace yourself - a 32KB limit to what a hard disk drive could hold.

Got questions? Our Sales Associates in the Build Your Own PC in each Micro Center can make sure you get the hardware, software, and information you need to do the things you want to do.