Adding a Hard Drive

BIOS / UEFI The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) defines a software interface between an operating system and platform firmware. UEFI is meant to replace the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) firmware interface. In practice, most UEFI firmware images provide legacy support for BIOS services.

Advantages of UEFI Ability to boot from large disks (over 2TB) with a GUID Partition Table (GPT). CPU-independent architecture CPU-independent drivers Flexible pre-OS environment, including networking capability Modular design GUID stands for Globally Unique Identifiers

Turn the drive on in the BIOS Most BIOS will automatically detect the type and capacity of a hard drive. BUT, the BIOS may allow you to turn off an I/O device. Turning on the BIOS allow for a quicker bootup. You MUST make sure that the port for your new drive is enabled in the BIOS.

Partitions After you initialize you drive you need to select the partition style. If any partitions already exist on the drive you might want to delete the existing partitions. CAUTION Deleting the partitions will delete any data on the disks. Some OEMs install system recovery data in a “hidden” partition on the drive. Deleting this partition may void you warranty and/or delete any OEM installed software.

Partition Styles MBR (Master Boot Record) Can boot the OS from an MBR partition Limited to 4 primary partitions GPT (GUID Partition Table) An older OS may not be able to boot from a GPT partition. Allows for use of hard drives and partitions larger than 2.2TB Supports up to 128 primary partitions Complies with UEFI system standards

Select the Volume Type Select the type of volume that you want to create Simple volume Spanned volume Striped volume Mirrored volume RAID-5 volume Most will want to select simple volume

Specify the Volume Size The OS will provide you with the maximum and minimum disk space that can be used to create the volume If you do not use the maximum size the unused space can be used to create additional volumes (logical drives).

Format the partition / select file system Select the Format / File System for the partition File systems keep track of where the files are on a system. FAT32 File Allocation Table (FAT) Very simple May find this the default on flash drives NTFS New Technology File System (NTFS) Adds additional support features Should be the default choice

Format quick vs. full Formatting will delete all the data on a drive. DO NOT format a drive if you need the data on the drive. Simply put formatting lays down a blank file allocation table and directory table. Formatting removes files from the partition. A full format scans the drive for bad sectors. A quick format does not scan for bad sectors. On a large hard drive a full format can take hours. You should always do a full format when installing a new in your system.

Volume types Spanned volume The volume spans more than one physical drive making multiple drives appears as a single larger drive. Striped volume (RAID-0) Data is split (striped) and written across multiple files. This allows for faster reads and writes. Mirrored volume (RAID-1) Data is written to two drives so that one drive is the mirror of the other. RAID-5 volume Data is striped across multiple drives and parity information is created. If one drive in the volume fails it can be replaced with a new drive and the data recovered.

File System Types File SystemMax File SizeMax Partition SizeJournalingNotes Fat162GB NoLegacy Fat324GB8TBNoLegacy NTFS2TB256TBYesWindows ext22TB32TBNoLegacy ext32TB32TBYesLinux ext416TB1EBYesLinux XFS8EB YesAdvanced systems

Hard Drive Maintenance You should periodically perform maintenance on your hard drive. Defragment your drive (not necessary for SSDs) Scan your drive for errors Back up your data In windows Right click on a drive icon Select properties Select tools