Learn more about formatting hard disks

Applies To: Windows Home Server 2011

When an unformatted internal hard disk is detected on the server, a health alert guides the user through the process of formatting the hard disk. It is recommended that you use external hard disks only for backing up the server. The Add a New Hard Disk wizard walks you through the formatting of the hard disk. When the wizard is completed, one or more logical hard drives formatted with the NTFS file system will be created on the hard disk depending on the size of the disk. If the size of the hard disk is less than 2TB, only one logical drive will be created, if it is larger than 2TB, multiple logical drives will be created. The logical hard drive size is kept under 2TB to ensure that the server can be backed up using the Server Backup feature.