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Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2013 09:01:22 -0700 (MST)
From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
To: Scott Bennett <bennett@cs.niu.edu>
Subject: Re: 3 TB disk troubles
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On Thu, 14 Feb 2013, Scott Bennett wrote:

>     The confusing thing is that the kernel says it's a 3 TB device,
> but the utility programs say otherwise.

There are more than a few SATA to USB adapters that are not capable of 
dealing with larger devices.  I've seen at least one that could not 
handle a 1T drive.  Now that larger drives are becoming more common, the 
limits are often shown on the device box or description.

The kernel may still identify the device correctly, possibly with 
different capacity detection.

As mentioned, ESATA or just bypassing the SATA/USB/Firewire 
adapter and connecting directly to the drive should give the full 
capacity.