[CentOS] Setting up large (12.5 TB) filesystem howto?

Fri Aug 28 11:03:57 UTC 2009
Götz Reinicke - IT-Koordinator <goetz.reinicke at filmakademie.de>

Hi,

I'm trying to set up an iscsi 12.5 TB storage for some data backup.

Doing so, I had some difficulties to find the right tool, maybe it's
also a question of the system settings...

The server is a 32Bit CentOS 5.3 with the recent updates. Ths iscsi
connection can be establised.

fdisk and parted fail to create any information on the device or fail
completely.

using the lvm tools (pvcreate, vgcreate, lvcreate), I could finaly
create a logical volume:

lvdisplay /dev/VolGroup02/lvol0
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Name                /dev/VolGroup02/lvol0
  VG Name                VolGroup02
  LV UUID                h7T6tD-JZw2-UEdb-q1ml-BDqp-9E0u-mAop6x
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV Status              available
  # open                 0
  LV Size                12,73 TB
  Current LE             3337487
  Segments               1
  Allocation             inherit
  Read ahead sectors     auto
  - currently set to     256
  Block device           253:4


But, I can't create a filesystem on it:

mkfs.ext3 -m 2 -j -O dir_index -v -b 4096 -L iscsi2lvol0
/dev/mapper/VolGroup02-lvol0


mke2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
mkfs.ext3: Filesystem too large.  No more than 2**31-1 blocks
	 (8TB using a blocksize of 4k) are currently supported.


The limits information provided by red hat say, that RH EL 5.1 supports
16 TB filesystems:

http://www.redhat.com/rhel/compare/

	-> Maximum filesystem size (Ext3): 16TB in 5.1

Using a block size of 8192 gives a warning, that this size is to large
for that system.


So my question: What is my missunderstanding or what's wrong with my
system? Where are the real limits? Do I have to switch the OS to 64 Bit?

Setting up large Filesystems isn't my staff of life  :-)


Thanks for amy how to or help of any kind - Best regards,

	Götz


-- 
Götz Reinicke
IT-Koordinator

Tel. +49 7141 969 420
Fax  +49 7141 969 55 420
E-Mail goetz.reinicke at filmakademie.de

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