[CentOS] 64 bit hardware and filesystem size limit

[Cletus Murphy]

> 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
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> The best things in life are NOT free - which is why life is easiest if
> you save all the bills until you can share them with the perfect woman

If you are running the latest 2.6 kernel you will not have this limitation.
Also - make sure you have the latest 3ware firmware/driver.

/dev/sdb1             3.7T  2.2T  1.6T  59% /data

Linux storage1.******.com 2.6.11.12 #1 Mon Jun 20 10:40:15 PDT 2005
i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Don't use ext2 or ext3 as your fs.

Take a look at http://www.3ware.com/kb/article.aspx?id=11920 as well.

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