Can I use a 4TB hard drive in a disk caddy to backup?

Hi,

I'm currently using a 2TB hard in a disk caddy to backup (with EaseUs software) using incremental backups but my disk is getting full (I have a lot of graphics and video files). I'm thinking of buying a 4TB hard drive to use in the caddy - I use a caddy so I can keep my backup drive elsewhere in case of burglary etc.

I've read that Win 10 can't 'see' more than 2TB, and so a 4TB drive would have to be setup using something called GPT rather then the normal MBR format.

My main worry is that Windows may not be able to see it because it's in a caddy - so I'll be left with an expensive 2Tb drive... Is anyone using a GPT-formatted 4TB successfully in a caddY

Also, can I keep my other drives as MBR?

Thanks.

any drive as long as it's the same interface(sata, ide)will work in the caddy, but this day and age you can get a 4 gig usb 3 drive for the same price or lower than the barebone droves.

strollin said:

I have an 8TB drive in an enclosure I use for backups and also have a 10TB internal drive on my machine so I can assure you that Win 10 can handle drives larger than 2TB.

i missed that part of your post. with 10 it is extremely unlikely you have a motherboard that can't handle a drive over 2tb.

EDIT:

ya you have a i7, so any mobo for that is going to have no problems with drives above 2tb.

Berton said:

My latest USB drive is 4TB and came factory-formatted as exFAT rather than NTFS, don't yet know if that will be an issue with a backup program.

my 2tb came that way, just reformat it to ntfs. it's a more secure file system anyway.

tallonius said:

I've read that Win 10 can't 'see' more than 2TB, and so a 4TB drive would have to be setup using something called GPT rather then the normal MBR format.

Correct - you'll need to format it using the GPT partition scheme. Actually it is a limitation of MBR partition scheme not Windows 10. Understanding the 2 TB Limit in Windows Storage | Ask the Core Team

tallonius said:

Also, can I keep my other drives as MBR?

Yes you certainly can. I have a mixture.

Barman58 said:

NTFS is I feel better for Computer backup as it natively retains the NTFS Permissions that are likely to be present in a backup

I'd agree with that - you would want GPT partition scheme and NTFS partition type.

I have been using (and advocating) MBR for a long time. Now I have migrated all my modern systems to GPT. It's not that difficult. You probably gain anything by doing this, but it's the only way if you want to use partitions greater than 2GB. And disk capacity is increasing every day.