Re: XFS and 3.2TB Partition

[Chris Hane <chrishane@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thank for the input.  I appreciate everyones help!

I believe I am going to end up not partitioning the raid array and using 
it directly (as described in an email which I copied below).

When we get our next large storage machine in (we've are going to need a 
couple over the next year to store CD & DVD ISO Images), I'm going to 
experiment some more with the suggestions everyone has given me here.

As an FYI:  I'm using the latest versions of everything (parted 1.7.1, 
kernel 2.6.16, 3ware raid controller brand new)

Thanks for the help,
Chris....

Peter Grandi wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 12:57:22 -0400, Chris Hane
>>>> <chrishane@xxxxxxxxx> said:
>
> chrishane> I am trying to create a 3.2TB partition on my Raid 5.
> chrishane> Is there a document that could help?
>
> The 9500 is fairly recent, so it should not have a lot of 2TB
> problems. But there are 2TB limits in several places. For example
> old versions of the Linux kernel don't support more than 2TB per
> _filesystem_.
>
> But I suspect that you are trying to create partitions in the
> sense of the MS-DOS/MS-Windows partitioning scheme. Check
> carefully whether that partitioning scheme allos partitions
> larger than 2TB :-).
>
> Anyhow, usually for very large filesystems you don't need
> partitions at all. Just use '/dev/sda'. Or check the other
> partitioning schemes supported by Linux, some may have higher
> limits.
>
> chrishane> I have a 3ware 9500 controller and 8 *500GB sata
> chrishane> drives configured into a single RAID 5 array.
>
> Using RAID5 with 8 drives is a great crime. Nothing to do with
> your partitioning problems, but since you mentioned it...
> Consider reading carefully <URL:http://WWW.BAARF.com/>
>

Rainer Krienke wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, 31. August 2006 18:57 schrieben Sie:
> > I am trying to create a 3.2TB partition on my Raid 5.  Is there a
> > document that could help?
> >
> > I have a 3ware 9500 controller and 8 *500GB sata drives configured into
> > a single RAID 5 array.
>
> I have a Raid with about 5TB and no problems creating an xfs filesystem on it. 
> The system is Novell SLES10 with a 2.6.16.21 kernel. 
>
> At first there was a problem with the raid. The firmware of the raid device 
> needed an upgrade. Bevore the upgrade I had a maximum of 2TB. 
>
> In dmesg (or /var/log/boot.msg on SLES10) you should see something like this 
> message if the device (sdc here) is handled correctly:
>
> <5>sdc : very big device. try to use READ CAPACITY(16).
> <5>SCSI device sdc: 10156243968 512-byte hdwr sectors (5199997 MB)
> <5>sdc: Write Protect is off
> <7>sdc: Mode Sense: cb 00 00 08
> <5>SCSI device sdc: drive cache: write back
> <5>sdc : very big device. try to use READ CAPACITY(16).
> <5>SCSI device sdc: 10156243968 512-byte hdwr sectors (5199997 MB)
>
> Bevore the firmware update there was an error when trying to read the capacity 
> via READ CAPACITY(16).  
>
> I created the partitiions using parted. fdisk did not work.
>
> Have a nice day
> Rainer