[CentOS] Problems with 2.3TB disk

> Why not run a fully updated centos-4?
>
> > The system contains a 2.3 TB RAID 5 array.  There is a 20GB root
> > partition with the remainder of the drive configured one large LVM
> > volume. (/u0) ...
> > I cannot do any of the following to the backup file: Use cat, dd or cp
> > to copy the file.  The first part of the file aproximately 24MB will
> > copy and then I get the error message: Input/output error
>
> Booting from it implies that you have a "normal" partition table on the
> 2.3T device, this does not work (dos style MBRs only works with <2T).
> Most people boot from a small and independent device and uses gpt (see
> parted) on the big device or no table at all (lvm directly on the
> device).
>

Hi Peter,

I took your advice.  I upgraded to CentOS 4.4 and then further upgraded the 
kernel to the official 2.6.18 kernel.

I installed a basic IDE drive and did the OS load on to that drive.  The 
remaining disks were resetup using hardware RAID 5 and LVM was setup 
directly on the device (no partitions).

Also to avoid any issues with large file systems and EXT3 I setup and 
formatted the LVM with JFS.  It's worth noting that a mkfs.jfs on 2.3TB 
took about 10 seconds!  For some odd reason the CentOS kernel doesn't 
support JFS so a recompile was in order.  Downloading and installing 
jfsutils was trivial.

Try as I might, I have not yet been able to reproduce the problems that 
caused me stress.  I can create multi GB files without a problem.  I can 
move files into and out of the partition without an error.  I'm taking 
this as a good sign.  I'm also not seeing any disk access errors in dmesg!

Shawn