[CentOS] mkfs.ext3 on a 9TB volume

Mon Sep 12 05:01:32 UTC 2005
Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org>

On Mon, 2005-09-12 at 00:12 -0400, Peter Arremann wrote:
> You'll find that a lot with Bryan that he makes up his own terms or puts his 
> opinion down as facts. 

Which is why you should feel free to believe I pull everything out of my
asshole -- I've said that before, and I'll say it again.

Of course, it's often my documentation that gets referenced by other
people -- Google searches, print publications, etc... and "explains"
things.  And it's _that_repeatable_, technical information year in and
year out that earns my trust.  I've only been posting here 4 months.  In
4 years, you might feel differently.

> But seriously - 1TB is just a good round number. Unlike the US tax code that 
> always keeps you guessing, saying "No more than 1TB for ext3" is a quick and 
> easy rule - and considering the fsck times you can get with a whole lot of 
> small files 1TB is a good number. 

It's a signed 32-bit integer for number of sectors.  That results in a
1.1TB (1TiB) limitation.  Ext3 has them all over the freak'n place in
its codebase, although I haven't seen it on kernel 2.6.5+.  In other
words, I don't like to have Ext3 data volumes over 1TB because some
systems just simply can't read them.

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE:  

I previously ran into the issue where I created a 2TB Ext3 volume o a
SAN device, and select versions/kernels could not use it.  But the
second I tried to mount a sub-1TB Ext3 filesystem from the same creator
on the same system, I had no issue.

I have absolutely _never_ ran into that problem with XFS -- Irix, Linux
2.4, etc...

> To sum it up, 1TB is no software limit but rather a number Bryan, me and a 
> whole bunch of others (just search google) see as the maximum filesystem size 
> they feel comfortable with. 

Whatever you think it is, go on an answer for me.
I'm used to you answering for me now.  ;->


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