PowerPath: Partition, path, and LUN limitations in Microsoft Windows

Summary: What is the maximum number of LUNs (Logical Unit Number) that can be presented? What is the maximum number of Paths per LUN? What is the Maximum Partition size on Microsoft Windows?

This article applies to This article does not apply to This article is not tied to any specific product. Not all product versions are identified in this article.

Instructions

What is the maximum number of LUNs that can be presented to Microsoft Windows?
As per https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/filecab/2008/10/20/storage-tip-how-to-calculate-windows-server-2008-lun-limit-per-hba/ (external link) 

Below are the limitations of the Microsoft Operating System 2003, 2008, 2012 and are architecture-based limitations of Microsoft:-

For each target, Microsoft Operating System (Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2012 support 254 LUNs. Each HBA can support 128 Targets per Bus where bus might be an artificial construct, and there could be eight buses per HBA (officially). So, per HBA (theoretical):

254 * 128 * 8 = 260,096 LUNs per HBA

The system runs out of resources long before that and each HBA cannot support anything close to that.
There can be up to 255 HBAs although there may be insufficient resources for more than 30.

When the server is booted, it performs plug and play. Many LUNs increase the Boot time of the server and resource consumption.

What is the maximum number of paths that you can present a LUN with on a Microsoft Windows Operating System.
A LUN can be presented to Microsoft Windows using 32 paths. This is a limitation of Microsoft MPIO.
This is not a limitation of a Multipathing software like PowerPath. Since Multipathing Software like PowerPath are DSM that fits in the Microsoft MPIO framework, all the multipathing software have to abide by the Architectural limitations of MPIO of 32 paths.

What is the maximum size of a partition in a Windows Operating system with different cluster sizes?
The Maximum size of a partition in a Windows Operating System using the MBR partition is 2 TB. If using a GPT Disk, it is possible to partition sizes up to 281 TB. The maximum size of a partition in Microsoft Windows depends on the Cluster size selected while creating it.

See the following article for more information. 

What is the maximum size of a partition in a Windows Operating system with different cluster sizes? (may require login to Dell Support)

Affected Products

PowerPath
Article Properties
Article Number: 000019117
Article Type: How To
Last Modified: 22 Oct 2025
Version:  4
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