A systems administrator is configuring a new physical server that will host a large-scale SQL database. The administrator has attached a new 10TB RAID array that will be used exclusively for the database files. The server is running a modern 64-bit version of Windows Server. Which of the following actions is the MOST appropriate first step to prepare the storage for use?
Initialize the disk using the GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning scheme.
Initialize the disk using the Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioning scheme.
Create an extended partition and configure multiple logical drives.
Format the newly created volume with the Resilient File System (ReFS).
The correct answer is to initialize the disk using the GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning scheme. The Master Boot Record (MBR) partition style has a limitation of supporting disks only up to 2TB in size. Since the new RAID array is 10TB, MBR cannot be used to address the entire storage space. GPT is the modern standard that supports disks larger than 2TB, up to 256TB on Windows systems.
The process of preparing a new disk involves first initializing it with a partition style (MBR or GPT), then creating one or more partitions/volumes, and finally formatting those volumes with a file system. Therefore, formatting the volume with ReFS is an action that occurs after the disk has been initialized and a volume has been created, making it an incorrect choice for the first step. Creating an extended partition is a technique used with MBR to overcome its limit of four primary partitions and is not relevant when dealing with a disk size that MBR cannot support in the first place.