We recently bought a 32-bit Xeon system with a 12-port 3Ware RAID card and a dozen 500GB drives. We wanted to create 4TB drive arrays; however, we soon discovered that there is about a 2.2TB drive array size limit on 32-bit hardware. Does that sound correct? Would replacing the 32-bit mobo/cpu with a 64-bit mobo/cpu allow us to use drive arrays larger than 2.2TB? Thanks.
On Mon, 2005-08-22 at 17:35 -0500, Sean Staats wrote:> We recently bought a 32-bit Xeon system with a 12-port 3Ware RAID card > and a dozen 500GB drives. We wanted to create 4TB drive arrays; > however, we soon discovered that there is about a 2.2TB drive array size > limit on 32-bit hardware. Does that sound correct?Yes, 2^40 = 2TiB ~ 2.2TB (2.2 * 10^12). This is a PC geometry issue, although Linux can get around it.> Would replacing the 32-bit mobo/cpu with a 64-bit mobo/cpu allow us to > use drive arrays larger than 2.2TB?Actually it's a 3Ware question because 3Ware has an intelligent ASIC on- board. It's driving the disk array, not Linux. It's merely presenting the disk array as a block, and Linux talks to the ASIC, not the disks. -- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith at ieee.org http://thebs413.blogspot.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
> On Mon, 2005-08-22 at 17:35 -0500, Sean Staats wrote: > > We recently bought a 32-bit Xeon system with a 12-port > 3Ware RAID card > > and a dozen 500GB drives. We wanted to create 4TB drive arrays; > > however, we soon discovered that there is about a 2.2TB > drive array size > > limit on 32-bit hardware. Does that sound correct? > > Yes, 2^40 = 2TiB ~ 2.2TB (2.2 * 10^12). This is a PC geometry issue, > although Linux can get around it. > > > Would replacing the 32-bit mobo/cpu with a 64-bit mobo/cpu > allow us to > > use drive arrays larger than 2.2TB? > > Actually it's a 3Ware question because 3Ware has an > intelligent ASIC on- > board. It's driving the disk array, not Linux. It's merely > presenting > the disk array as a block, and Linux talks to the ASIC, not the disks. > > > > -- > Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith at ieee.org http://thebs413.blogspot.com > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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 womanIf you are running the latest 2.6 kernel you will not have this limitation. Also - make sure you have the latest 3ware firmware/driver. /dev/sdb1 3.7T 2.2T 1.6T 59% /data Linux storage1.******.com 2.6.11.12 #1 Mon Jun 20 10:40:15 PDT 2005 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux Don't use ext2 or ext3 as your fs. Take a look at http://www.3ware.com/kb/article.aspx?id=11920 as well. --