Windows 7 Seagate prepares 3TB hard drives

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Cooler King
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Seagate has confirmed that it is preparing the first 3TB hard drives to come to market later this year, but has warned that many users will need a new computer to take full advantage of this amount of storage.

The drive maker said that its first 3.5in 3TB units are likely to be available towards the end of 2010, but no exact availability date has yet been set.

In the meantime, Seagate is trying to raise awareness that many computers will not be able to use the full capacity of the new drives. Desktop PCs running Windows XP, for example, can handle a maximum 2.1TB of disk space.

Newer operating systems, such as the 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows Vista, support a newer logical block address (LBA) scheme called Long LBA addressing that can handle drive volumes larger than 2.1TB.

The standard Windows hard disk driver included in Vista and Windows 7 already supports Long LBA, according to Seagate, while Intel is currently working to add this to an updated version of its Intel Storage Matrix driver.

However, the legacy Bios firmware inside most PCs does not, so even these systems would be unable to boot from a 3TB disk.

Seagate advises that users will need a PC with a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, the replacement for the legacy PC Bios, or to use drives larger than 2.1TB connected to Raid controllers or host bus adapters, commonly used in workstation and server environments.

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This is some very good news! :) My 1TB HDD's are quickly filling up.. I'll definitly be purchasing a couple 3TB drives once they release.. ;)
 
This is some very good news! :) My 1TB HDD's are quickly filling up.. I'll definitly be purchasing a couple 3TB drives once they release.. ;)

Now this is a sign of the times when 1 TB drives are filling up.:p
I remember when 200 GB was considered huge.
 
Now this is a sign of the times when 1 TB drives are filling up.:p
I remember when 200 GB was considered huge.

It's true.. Though I remember when a 500MB HDD was considered huge.. ;) I actually found one of my older HDD's a while back, it was 250MB and it still had the price tag on it, $350 +tax.. Insane! Though normal for that time.. ;)
 
It's true.. Though I remember when a 500MB HDD was considered huge.. ;) I actually found one of my older HDD's a while back, it was 250MB and it still had the price tag on it, $350 +tax.. Insane! Though normal for that time.. ;)

I still have an old Quantum Fireball (great name) 2GB drive and as you say it's quite amazing when you look back..
 
I wish they would come up with another formatting routine. Using the full format on such a large drive takes forever, using the Quick format may not disrupt files that may need to be overwritten. Something that would at least partially overwrite all the files might be needed.
 
I wish they would come up with another formatting routine. Using the full format on such a large drive takes forever, using the Quick format may not disrupt files that may need to be overwritten. Something that would at least partially overwrite all the files might be needed.
I can't imagine using something like Darik's Boot and Nuke to do a complete format on a 3 TB drive.
It would take days maybe even weeks depending on the method option chosen.

Is there really any compelling reason now days to do a complete or "low level" format for everyday use? I don't mean wiping a drive for "security" reasons.
 
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