What is the max device size? (Linux in general)

sjj698 · n00b Joined: 14 Jan 2004 Posts: 8

I am having trouble getting SUSE to recognise a single file system greater than 2TB. I have a 3.2TB RAID array and would like to mount it to a single mount point. However it only ever recognises 1.7TB. (MAX)

Things we have tried.

SUSE 9.0 standard Install.
I can create two partitions each 1.6TB and when I try to use RAID0(striping) to join them it can only see 1.7TB
(I tried 4 x ~1TB but the same thing)

We then tried the latest kernel, 2.6.4 with the CONFIG_LBD=y, this caused a few problems :-
The SCSI driver throws errors which we solved by turning off the dma and acpic but this still did not let us have a drive bigger than 2TB

Is it possible to do this in Linux??
Is there support for large devices in linux? if so any ideas?

Fileformat : ReiserFS hash=tea format=3.6
Controller LSI LSI22320-R (SCSI)
SUSE version : 9.0
Kernel 2.4 and 2.6.4

I realise that this is not directly related to Gentoo, but I am now wondering if gentoo can/will solve my problems or if this I a general limitation in linux.....

Many thanks in Advance
Steven

flavio · Apprentice Joined: 12 Mar 2004 Posts: 161

In order to support LBD you need a kernel that uses, at least a 64 bit addressing space (the LBD patch) plus userspace utilities that support it. I'm not sure that either MDtools or LVM support LBD.

sjj698 · n00b Joined: 14 Jan 2004 Posts: 8

I have enabled the large block devices in kernel 2.6.4 which permits them, should i not just be able to format it as Reiserfs?

thanks

flavio · Apprentice Joined: 12 Mar 2004 Posts: 161

Yes, as long as the reiserfs driver in the kernel and the mkfs.reiser userspace utilities support large block devices (which I don't know).