[CentOS] pvcreate limitations on big disks?

Thu May 24 15:57:02 UTC 2012
James A. Peltier <jpeltier at sfu.ca>

----- Original Message -----
| Em 23-05-2012 16:24, Alan McKay escreveu:
| > OK folks, I'm back at it again.  Instead of taking my J4400 ( 24 x
| > 1T
| > disks) and making a big RAID60 out of it which Linux cannot make a
| > filesystem on, I'm created 4 x RAID6 which each are 3.64T
| > 
| > I then do :
| > 
| > sfdisk /dev/sd{b,c,d,e} <<EOF
| > ,,8e
| > EOF
| > 
| > to make a big LVM partition on each one.
| > 
| > But then when I do :
| > 
| > pvcreate /dev/sd{b,c,d,e}1
| > 
| > and then
| > 
| > pvdisplay
| > 
| > It shows each one as only half its actual size.
| 
| You need to use GPT partition table to manage above 2TB.
| Traditional DOS partition can't manage above 2TB.
| fdisk can't work with GPT, it's possible sfdisk don't work too.
| 
| Try using parted /dev/device, and
| mklabel GPT

No you do not.  You do not need a partition table on them at all.  Just use whole disk LVM.  pvcreate /dev/sd{b,c,d,e}  Note that when you run fdisk or any other tool it will say invalid partition table, but it works fine and is in fact recommended for LVM installations that whole disks be used.

-- 
James A. Peltier
Manager, IT Services - Research Computing Group
Simon Fraser University - Burnaby Campus
Phone   : 778-782-6573
Fax     : 778-782-3045
E-Mail  : jpeltier at sfu.ca
Website : http://www.sfu.ca/itservices
          http://blogs.sfu.ca/people/jpeltier

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached
in life but as by the obstacles they have overcome. - Booker T. Washington