Is there a limit on how much storage I can install on my PC?

[GamerBlake]

Does anyone know if there is a motherboard limit on how much storage can be installed on one PC?

 

Im thinking kind of like how with RAM some motherboard will cap out at like 128GB but does this apply to normal storage too?

 

Or can I have as much storage as I want as long as I have enough SATA & M.2 ports to plug it all in?

[Uptivuptiz]

Theoretically it should be possible to keep adding storage if you have unlimited storage interfaces. What I'm thinking would be a potential issue is the OS. It's probably not been programmed to handle so many drives  

[GamerBlake]

1 minute ago, Uptivuptiz said:

Theoretically it should be possible to keep adding storage if you have unlimited storage interfaces. What I'm thinking would be a potential issue is the OS. It's probably not been programmed to handle so many drives  

Ohh well what I meant was like “hypothetically” if there was a 1000TB M.2 or SATA drive and I plugged it in to my motherboard would it work?

 

Or is there some limit that the motherboard can only handle up to X amount of storage total before it is unable to take anymore?

[WereCatf]

Just now, GamerBlake said:

Ohh well what I meant was like “hypothetically” if there was a 1000TB M.2 or SATA drive and I plugged it in to my motherboard would it work?

 

Or is there some limit that the motherboard can only handle up to X amount of storage total before it is unable to take anymore?

No, there is no such thing.

[GamerBlake]

Just now, WereCatf said:

No, there is no such thing.

What part of “hypothetically” do you not understand?  

[starry]

Just now, GamerBlake said:

What part of “hypothetically” do you not understand?  

It used to be that certain SATA controllers struggled with drives larger than 2.2TB, but thats just not a thing anymore. Also I think they perfectly understand, they were just stating the fact that its not a thing.

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, GamerBlake said:

What part of “hypothetically” do you not understand?  

What part of "no" do you not understand? Technically, the limit would be the maximum value a 64-bit register can hold, but that's 16777216TiB or 16384PiB -- you're going to wait for a LONG ASS TIME to reach such amounts, if ever, and that's for a single drive. You could have as many such drives in your system as you have connectors and it'd still work fine.

[GamerBlake]

1 minute ago, seapriestess said:

It used to be that certain SATA controllers struggled with drives larger than 2.2TB, but thats just not a thing anymore. Also I think they perfectly understand, they were just stating the fact that its not a thing.

I know it’s not a thing.

 

Here is a better example:

 

My MSI z390 ACE has:

3x M.2 slots & 6x SATA ports..

 

If I put 3x 4TB M.2 NVMe drives and 6x 16 TB Iron Wolf HDDs in my motherboard would it be able to handle all that storage without any consequences?

[GamerBlake]

1 minute ago, WereCatf said:

What part of "no" do you not understand? Technically, the limit would be the maximum value a 64-bit register can hold, but that's 16777216TiB or 16384PiB -- you're going to wait for a LONG ASS TIME to reach such amounts, if ever.

You could’ve just said that in the first place rather than informing me of something I already know. I know that there are no 1000TB NVMe or any kind of drives even close to that.

 

I was just asking because I was curious of the theoretical maximum amount of storage on one drive that a motherboard can handle.

[starry]

2 minutes ago, GamerBlake said:

I know it’s not a thing.

 

Here is a better example:

 

My MSI z390 ACE has:

3x M.2 slots & 6x SATA ports..

 

If I put 3x 4TB M.2 NVMe drives and 6x 16 TB Iron Wolf HDDs in my motherboard would it be able to handle all that storage without any consequences?

yeah it should be able to, you could even start adding more SATA controller cards for more ports, and PCIE to M.2 Adaptors until you start running out of PCI slots or Lanes

Of course at that point you might even run into power supply limitations from having hundreds of hard drives.

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, GamerBlake said:

You could’ve just said that in the first place rather than informing me of something I already know. I know that there are no 1000TB NVMe or any kind of drives even close to that.

I did. I didn't say anything about such NVMe-drives existing, I fucking answered your question.

[Enderman]

9.4 zettabytes per drive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table\

 

Windows has a 26 drive limit but if you use raid controllers you can put like 8 drives per controller or more, and each card would act as a single drive.

[GamerBlake]

1 minute ago, WereCatf said:

I did. I didn't say anything about such NVMe-drives existing, I fucking answered your question.

No, you said “no, there is no such thing.”

 

As if I didn’t know 1000TB NvMe drives didn’t exist. I do know that.

[WereCatf]

Just now, Enderman said:

9.4 zettabytes per drive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table\

That's not a hardware-limitation, but a software-one. One could always come up with a new partitioning-scheme, thereby making GPT's limitations irrelevant.

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, GamerBlake said:

No, you said “no, there is no such thing.”

 

As if I didn’t know 1000TB NvMe drives didn’t exist. I do know that.

I said nothing about NVMe-drives, I answered the question.

[GamerBlake]

3 minutes ago, seapriestess said:

yeah it should be able to, you could even start adding more SATA controller cards for more ports, and PCIE to M.2 Adaptors until you start running out of PCI slots or Lanes

Of course at that point you might even run into power supply limitations from having hundreds of hard drives.

Thanks! I was only asking because I currently have 6TB of storage (1TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe, 1 TB Samsung 860 Evo SATA SSD, 1 TB Samsung 860 QVO SATA SSD, 1 TB WD Blue HDD and 2TB Firecuda SSHD) and I wanted to add more storage by adding another NvMe drive or a couple more HDD drives but I wasn’t sure if adding so much storage might slow down my PC since it would have to search through all that storage to find what I’m looking for.

[Enderman]

2 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

That's not a hardware-limitation, but a software-one. One could always come up with a new partitioning-scheme, thereby making GPT's limitations irrelevant.

Yeah, and I'm sure datacenters use custom stuff that's not GPT, but for OP's question he's talking about a regular consumer PC with normal M.2 or sata ports.

The BIOS on consumer motherboards supports MBR or GPT only.

[GamerBlake]

1 minute ago, WereCatf said:

I said nothing about NVMe-drives, I answered the question.

Well I’m sorry if I misunderstood you but it just seemed like you were trying to be snarky. If that’s not the case I apologize for the misunderstanding.

[WereCatf]

Just now, Enderman said:

The BIOS on consumer motherboards supports MBR or GPT only.

For booting, yes. If you are not booting from the drive, it doesn't matter what partitioning-scheme you use on the drive.

[TrigrH]

1 minute ago, GamerBlake said:

Thanks! I was only asking because I currently have 6TB of storage (1TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe, 1 TB Samsung 860 Evo SATA SSD, 1 TB Samsung 860 QVO SATA SSD, 1 TB WD Blue HDD and 2TB Firecuda SSHD) and I wanted to add more storage by adding another NvMe drive or a couple more HDD drives but I wasn’t sure if adding so much storage might slow down my PC since it would have to search through all that storage to find what I’m looking for.

As long as you follow your motherboard manual as some ports disable others when in use.

[GamerBlake]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

Yeah, and I'm sure datacenters use custom stuff that's not GPT, but for OP's question he's talking about a regular consumer PC with normal M.2 or sata ports.

The BIOS on consumer motherboards supports MBR or GPT only.

Yeah I am because I want to add more storage to my PC but I already have 6TB of storage and I wasn’t sure if adding more would slow down my PC or something. I still have 1 available M.2 slot and was going to add a 1 TB Sabrent a Rocket since I’m running low on storage.

[GamerBlake]

1 minute ago, TrigrH said:

As long as you follow your motherboard manual as some ports disable others when in use.

Oh I don’t know if mine does that and the manual is thick as heck . It’s like 150 pages.

 

Im using an MSI MEG z390 ACE. 
 

I was told it was a higher end board and I bought it because it had lots of M.2 slots and USB ports when my old MSI z370-a Pro didn’t have any M.2 slots and very few USB ports.

[WereCatf]

Just now, GamerBlake said:

Yeah I am because I want to add more storage to my PC but I already have 6TB of storage and I wasn’t sure if adding more would slow down my PC or something. I still have 1 available M.2 slot and was going to add a 1 TB Sabrent a Rocket since I’m running low on storage.

Most mobos disable some of the SATA-ports when you add drives into the M.2 - slots. Like @TrigrH said, you need to check your manual first.

[GamerBlake]

Just now, WereCatf said:

Most mobos disable some of the SATA-ports when you add drives into the M.2 - slots. Like @TrigrH said, you need to check your manual first.

Where in the manual would I find that information? It’s an MSI MEG z390 ACE Motherboard and the manual is huge.

[WereCatf]

Just now, GamerBlake said:

Where in the manual would I find that information? It’s an MSI MEG z390 ACE Motherboard and the manual is huge.

There's the section close to the beginning of the manual, which explains what ports there are on the mobo and where those ports are -- this section should have all the information regarding the M.2 - slots as well.