Which partitioning scheme supports disks larger than 2TB and unlimited partitions?

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

GUID Partition Table (GPT) uses 64-bit LBA addressing, so it supports disks far larger than 2 TB and does not have the four-primary-partition limit of MBR.

1) Relevant knowledge points and concepts
- Partitioning schemes: MBR (Master Boot Record) vs GPT (GUID Partition Table).  
- File systems (NTFS, FAT32) are different from partitioning schemes.  
- MBR uses 32-bit logical block addressing (LBAs); GPT uses 64-bit LBAs.  
- MBR limits partitions to four primary (or three primary + extended/logical); GPT removes that architectural 4-partition limit.

2) Step-by-step reasoning
- The maximum addressable disk size depends on number of LBAs × bytes per sector. Traditional sector size = 512 bytes.  
- MBR uses 32-bit LBAs → maximum LBAs = 2^32. So maximum bytes = 2^32 × 512.

3) Calculation (intermediate steps)
- 2^32 = 4,294,967,296  
- 4,294,967,296 × 512 = 2,199,023,255,552 bytes  
- 1 TiB = 2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes → 2,199,023,255,552 / 1,099,511,627,776 = 2 TiB  
Thus MBR’s practical limit is 2 TiB (≈2.2 TB).

- GPT uses 64-bit LBAs: 2^64 × 512 bytes = 2^73 bytes (an astronomically large number), so GPT supports disks far beyond current consumer sizes. GPT also supports many more partition entries (Windows defaults to 128, but the table can be expanded), so it is not constrained to MBR’s four-primary-partition design.

4) Why the correct answer is correct
GPT is specifically designed to overcome MBR’s size and partition-count limitations by using 64-bit addressing and a flexible partition entry array. This is why GPT supports disks larger than 2 TB and effectively “unlimited” partitions compared to MBR.

5) Why the other options are incorrect
- NTFS: a file system, not a partitioning scheme; it does not define disk partition table limits.  
- MBR: limited to 2 TiB and four primary partitions, so it cannot satisfy the question.  
- FAT32: a file system with its own size/file limitations (and not a partitioning scheme); not relevant to partition-table size limits.

6) Conclusion
The correct choice is b. GPT, which matches the provided answer.

Which partitioning scheme supports disks larger than 2TB and unlimited partitions?单项选择题

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