MBR to GPT Partioion change

[ataylor]

I've got a couple of 4tb drives in my pool that were migrated from a very old WHS setup. When the drives were initialised on that system they were initialised as MBR disks limiting them to 2tb (I didn't realise at the time!) Now that I have them spinning in my Drivepool setup I want to extend the partition on the drive to full capacity but to do that I will have to convert it to a GPT drive. There are tools that will let me do that without data loss but my question is:

 

Will either the conversion to GPT OR the change in partition size cause Drivepool not to recognise the drive?

 

Should I terminate the drivepool service whilst making this change (or perhaps more reliably restart with 'startup' set to disabled)?

 

Cheers,
Andrew

[grimpr]

I've done GPT and NTFS 64K cluster size on all of my Stablebit Drivepool drives sometime ago, one by one i've emptied the drives, removed them from the Pool, initialized them as GPT, formatted them with 64K ntfs cluster size and readded them to the Pool, it took time but it was worth it.

[ataylor]

one by one i've emptied the drives, removed them from the Pool, initialized them as GPT

 

Thanks, that's my fall back if I can't get an answer on the lossless change and partition resize. 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Converting the disks will cause a problem.  We use the disk signature to identify the drives. 

 

 

The best option here is to remove a drive from the pool, delete the partition, convert to GPT and then re-add to the pool.  Repeat this for each drive in the pool.  

 

You can use the "Drive Usage Limiter" balancer to help clear out a drive, one at a time (uncheck both options for the disk in question and leave it alone for a day or three). 

I've done GPT and NTFS 64K cluster size on all of my Stablebit Drivepool drives sometime ago, one by one i've emptied the drives, removed them from the Pool, initialized them as GPT, formatted them with 64K ntfs cluster size and readded them to the Pool, it took time but it was worth it.

 

64kb cluster size is fantastic, if you have predominantly large files.

[ataylor]

Great, thanks for the answer Christoper!

[Christopher (Drashna)]

You're very welcome! 

IMO, it's worth converting to GPT and 64kb cluster size.  Improved reliability and performance.