[CentOS] ext3 filesystems larger than 8TB

Fri May 2 20:09:48 UTC 2008
Ross S. W. Walker <rwalker at medallion.com>

Ray Van Dolson wrote:
> On Fri, May 02, 2008 at 02:36:41PM -0500, Monty Shinn wrote:
> > Greetings.
> >
> > I am trying to create a 10TB (approx) ext3 filesystem.  I am able to 
> > successfully create the partition using parted, but when I try to use 
> > mkfs.ext3, I get an error stating there is an 8TB limit for ext3 
> > filesystems.
> >
> > I looked at the specs for 5 on the "upstream" vendor's website, and they  
> > indicate that there is a 16TB limit on ext3.
> >
> > Has anyone been able to create a ext3 filesystem larger than 8TB?
> >
> > If ext3 isn't an option, has anyone used the kmod-xfs-smp.i686 module 
> > mentioned on the centos site?  Surely it doesn't have an 8TB limit...
> >
> > specs:
> >
> > Centos 5.1
> > kernel-2.6.18-53.1.14.el5
> > 3Ware 9550SXU 12port raid card
> >
> > Am I just walking into a big nightmare?
> >
> > Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
> >
> 
> I think it *theoretically* should work as ext3 should to 16TB.
> However, we ran into issues with userland tools and such.  Possibly
> related to x86_64 vs i386 stuff, but in the end to avoid continued
> troubleshooting we just used centosplus + jfs.  Works 
> perfectly for our
> 10TB filesystem.

I'm curious what you store that you need 10TB of linear storage?

I have had 4-6-8TB storage systems, but the storage was always
divvied up between different applications.

-Ross

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