[CentOS] 64 bit hardware and filesystem size limit

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Mon, 2005-08-22 at 17:35 -0500, Sean Staats wrote:
> We recently bought a 32-bit Xeon system with a 12-port 3Ware RAID card
> and a dozen 500GB drives.  We wanted to create 4TB drive arrays;
> however, we soon discovered that there is about a 2.2TB drive array size
> limit on 32-bit hardware.  Does that sound correct?

Yes, 2^40 = 2TiB ~ 2.2TB (2.2 * 10^12).  This is a PC geometry issue,
although Linux can get around it.

> Would replacing the 32-bit mobo/cpu with a 64-bit mobo/cpu allow us to
> use drive arrays larger than 2.2TB?

Actually it's a 3Ware question because 3Ware has an intelligent ASIC on-
board.  It's driving the disk array, not Linux.  It's merely presenting
the disk array as a block, and Linux talks to the ASIC, not the disks.



-- 
Bryan J. Smith     b.j.smith at ieee.org     http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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