I just did a test install of opensolaris 2008.11 on a Seagate 1.5TB drive with option of "using the entire disk". Afterwards, df -H reports that the available space in /export/home is only about 970GB ... all counted, there are at least 400GB space missing. I am new to zfs, however, this seems too much even with that taking reserved blocks into consideration. My question is, is this normal or expected? thanks in advance. Oliver -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
On Wed, Feb 11 at 8:38, Oliver wrote:>I just did a test install of opensolaris 2008.11 on a Seagate 1.5TB drive with option of "using the entire disk". > >Afterwards, df -H reports that the available space in /export/home is only about 970GB ... all counted, there are at least 400GB space missing. I am new to zfs, however, this seems too much even with that taking reserved blocks into consideration. > >My question is, is this normal or expected? > >thanks in advance. > >OliverNot sure if it''s expected, but 970GB is right around 2 billion LBAs, the limit of a 32-bit signed number. Maybe something in the path is limited to 32-bits. --eric -- Eric D. Mudama edmudama at mail.bounceswoosh.org
could be ... I am hoping for a better clue to figure this out. after this, I also installed the ubuntu server on the same box, and I am getting around 1.4TB space as expected ... so it is not something in the hardware path, I guess. thanks Oliver -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
On Wed, 11 Feb 2009, Oliver wrote:> I just did a test install of opensolaris 2008.11 on a Seagate 1.5TB > drive with option of "using the entire disk". > > Afterwards, df -H reports that the available space in /export/home > is only about 970GB ... all counted, there are at least 400GB space > missing. I am new to zfs, however, this seems too much even with > that taking reserved blocks into consideration. > > My question is, is this normal or expected?My understanding is that 1TB is the maximum bootable disk size since EFI boot is not supported. It is good that you were allowed to use the larger disk, even if its usable space is truncated. Bob =====================================Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
On 2/11/2009 12:11 PM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:> > My understanding is that 1TB is the maximum bootable disk size since > EFI boot is not supported. It is good that you were allowed to use > the larger disk, even if its usable space is truncated. >I don''t dispute that, but I don''t understand it either. If EFI is not being used (ZFS boot doesn''t use EFI on the root pool since the BIOS doesn''t (usually) uinderstand the EFI label) then what is it that has a 1TB limit? I beleive linux (and I''d guess NTFS) can use the whole disk past 1TB, so my guess is the old fashioned PC/DOS/FDisk partition tables can handle sizes over 1TB now (though I know they couldn''t in the past.) Anyone know what the bottle neck is? -Kyle> Bob > =====================================> Bob Friesenhahn > bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, > http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ > GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/ > > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
On 11 February, 2009 - Kyle McDonald sent me these 1,2K bytes:> On 2/11/2009 12:11 PM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote: >> >> My understanding is that 1TB is the maximum bootable disk size since >> EFI boot is not supported. It is good that you were allowed to use >> the larger disk, even if its usable space is truncated. >> > I don''t dispute that, but I don''t understand it either. > > If EFI is not being used (ZFS boot doesn''t use EFI on the root pool > since the BIOS doesn''t (usually) uinderstand the EFI label) then what is > it that has a 1TB limit?SMI/VTOC, the original label (partition table format:ish) system used. EFI can use larger, but EFI tables for boot isn''t supported right now. I guess you should be able to put the rpool on a 50GB slice or so, then put the other 1450GB in an EFI data pool.. It''s just that you can''t have the rpool >1TB due to boot limits. /Tomas -- Tomas ?gren, stric at acc.umu.se, http://www.acc.umu.se/~stric/ |- Student at Computing Science, University of Ume? `- Sysadmin at {cs,acc}.umu.se
On 2/11/2009 12:57 PM, Tomas ?gren wrote:> On 11 February, 2009 - Kyle McDonald sent me these 1,2K bytes: > > >> On 2/11/2009 12:11 PM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote: >> >>> My understanding is that 1TB is the maximum bootable disk size since >>> EFI boot is not supported. It is good that you were allowed to use >>> the larger disk, even if its usable space is truncated. >>> >>> >> I don''t dispute that, but I don''t understand it either. >> >> If EFI is not being used (ZFS boot doesn''t use EFI on the root pool >> since the BIOS doesn''t (usually) uinderstand the EFI label) then what is >> it that has a 1TB limit? >> > > SMI/VTOC, the original label (partition table format:ish) system used. > > EFI can use larger, but EFI tables for boot isn''t supported right now. > I guess you should be able to put the rpool on a 50GB slice or so, then > put the other 1450GB in an EFI data pool.. >Ok, So while the fdisk solaris partition could be made to use the whole disk, the solaris label/vtoc inside the solaris fdisk partition can only use 1TB of that. Since you can''t mix EFI and FDisk partition tables, and you can''t have more than one Solaris fdisk partition (that I''m aware of anyway) it looks like 1TB is all you can give Solaris at the moment. But you could give that other 400GB to some other OS or Filesystem I suppose. SInce EFI boot requires (IIRC) X86 HW vendors to improve the BIOS support, EFI boot isn''t going to be useful for a while even if it appeared tomorrow. Is there any hope, or plan to improve/fix teh Solaris VTOC? -Kyle -Kyle> It''s just that you can''t have the rpool>1TB due to boot limits. > > /Tomas >
On 2/11/2009 1:03 PM, Kyle McDonald wrote:> > Since you can''t mix EFI and FDisk partition tables, and you can''t have > more than one Solaris fdisk partition (that I''m aware of anyway) it > looks like 1TB is all you can give Solaris at the moment.I should have qualified that with " If you need to boot from it." Of course if you don''t need to boot from it, Solaris can just put an EFI label on it and use the whole thing. If it were me I''d find some small drive to put the OS on and save that nice big drive for a second (non root) pool that can use the whole thing. Also since those drives are generally under $200 now, I''d probably pick up a second and mirror the 2. -Kyle
Kyle McDonald wrote:> On 2/11/2009 12:57 PM, Tomas ?gren wrote: >> On 11 February, 2009 - Kyle McDonald sent me these 1,2K bytes: >> >> >>> On 2/11/2009 12:11 PM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote: >>> >>>> My understanding is that 1TB is the maximum bootable disk size since >>>> EFI boot is not supported. It is good that you were allowed to use >>>> the larger disk, even if its usable space is truncated. >>>> >>>> >>> I don''t dispute that, but I don''t understand it either. >>> >>> If EFI is not being used (ZFS boot doesn''t use EFI on the root pool >>> since the BIOS doesn''t (usually) uinderstand the EFI label) then >>> what is >>> it that has a 1TB limit? >>> >> >> SMI/VTOC, the original label (partition table format:ish) system used. >> >> EFI can use larger, but EFI tables for boot isn''t supported right now. >> I guess you should be able to put the rpool on a 50GB slice or so, then >> put the other 1450GB in an EFI data pool.. >> > Ok, So while the fdisk solaris partition could be made to use the > whole disk, the solaris label/vtoc inside the solaris fdisk partition > can only use 1TB of that. > > Since you can''t mix EFI and FDisk partition tables, and you can''t have > more than one Solaris fdisk partition (that I''m aware of anyway) it > looks like 1TB is all you can give Solaris at the moment.Solaris can now (as of b105) use extended partitions. http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/on/flag-days/pages/2008120301/ -- richard
On 2/11/2009 1:50 PM, Richard Elling wrote:> > Solaris can now (as of b105) use extended partitions. > http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/on/flag-days/pages/2008120301/That''s interesting, but I''m not sure how it helps. It''s my understanding that Solaris doesn''t like it if more than one of the fdisk partitions (primary or extended) are of type ''Solaris[2]'' Has that changed? -Kyle> -- richard >