Help needed to understand UEFI

[jahilton2002]

Hi guys,

please forgive me as im alittle confused.

i have a dell server (r610) 6c xeon with 6 x 600gb discs in RAID5, -one lost to the RAID and -one as a hotswap/dormant drive giving me 2.4TB of storage.

i installed server 08 r2 onto this server and disc manager reported alot of "unusable space"

after alittle research it seems its because my volume exceeds 2TB.

If i enable UEFI and reformat the discs to GPT will i be able to boot from this GPT volume or do i need a Itanium based system for that?

or do i have to have a RAID1(MBR) for the OS and a RAID5(GPT) for the data volume?

thx

[jamesfed]

Server 2008 R2 of any edition will boot from a UEFI volume.

With our non UEFI motherboards on our HPs I create two logical disks using the HP RAID controller one about 120GB (for the OS which is MBR compatible) and then use the remainder as a non bootable GPT disk.

[jahilton2002]

Server 2008 R2 of any edition will boot from a UEFI volume.

even if the motherboard doesn't support UEFI?

eg, non UEFI MOBO, raid5 c: @ 4TB(gpt), would the server boot if running 08 R2 @ see the full 4TB

or

UEFO MOBO, raid5 c: @ 4TB (gpt), would the server boot if running 08 R2 @ see the full 4TB

With our non UEFI motherboards on our HPs I create two logical disks using the HP RAID controller one about 120GB (for the OS which is MBR compatible) and then use the remainder as a non bootable GPT disk.

on my server (UEFI supported) could i have OS C: (GPT) and DATA D: (GPT) where you have a OS C: (MBR) data D: (GPT).

what are the benifits of me using GPT over MBR if the Boot volume is not going to be bigger than 2TB.... i was under the inpression i needed a Itanium based cpu aswell as running Itanium-server 2008 r2 to be able to boot from a gpt volume, even tho i have a UEFI supported MOBO

thx for taking the time to answer my questions.

[Arthur]

even if the motherboard doesn't support UEFI?

The server (and RAID controller) must support UEFI to boot from a GPT formatted drive. All versions of Windows Server (starting with Windows Server 2003 SP1) can use GPT partitioned disks for data however.

UEFI MOBO, raid5 c: @ 4TB (gpt), would the server boot if running 08 R2 @ see the full 4TB

Yes, although it's generally recommend not to use RAID-5 for your OS drive. RAID-1 would be a better choice, with RAID-5 (or 6) for your data.

what are the benefits of me using GPT over MBR if the boot volume is not going to be bigger than 2TB

With UEFI, you don't get a choice...

When you deploy Windows to an EFI-based or UEFI-based computer, you must format the hard disk drive or other persistent storage device that includes the Windows partition by using a GUID partition table (GPT) file system. Additional drives might use either the GPT or the master boot record (MBR) file format. (Source)

I was under the impression I needed a Itanium based CPU as well as running Itanium-server 2008 r2 to be able to boot from a GPT volume

Not any more. Even my home computer boots just fine from a GPT formatted SSD and all I have is a standard x86-64 Intel processor (Core i5-2500K), a UEFI motherboard (Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z/Gen3) and a 64-bit edition of Windows 7.

[jahilton2002]

The server (and RAID controller) must support UEFI to boot from a GPT formatted drive. All versions of Windows Server (starting with Windows Server 2003 SP1) can use GPT partitioned disks for data however.


Yes, although it's generally recommend not to use RAID-5 for your OS drive. RAID-1 would be a better choice, with RAID-5 (or 6) for your data.


With UEFI, you don't get a choice...




Not any more. Even my home computer boots just fine from a GPT formatted SSD and all I have is a standard x86-64 Intel processor (Core i5-2500K), a UEFI motherboard (Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z/Gen3) and a 64-bit edition of Windows 7.

thx alot. this helps me loads