From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Carlos Knowlton Subject: Re: > 2TB ? Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 07:41:50 -0600 Message-ID: <420CB61E.5030305@update.fsix.com> References: <09d601c50fb1$b9c9df10$020a0a0a@musicroom> <62b0912f0502110132630b3ae4@mail.gmail.com> Reply-To: cknowlton@science.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <62b0912f0502110132630b3ae4@mail.gmail.com> Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-raid.ids Molle Bestefich wrote: >No email wrote: > > >>Forgive me as this is probably a silly question and one that has been >>answered many times, I have tried to search for the answers but have >>ended up more confused than when I started. So thought maybe I could >>ask the community to put me out of my misery >> >>Is there a version of MD that can create larger than 2TB raid sets? >> >> > >I have a couple of terabyte software RAID 1+0 arrays under Linux. >No size problems with MD as of yet. > >But the filesystems is a different affair, and I think this is where >you should watch out. >Linux filesystems seems to stink real bad when they span multiple >terabytes, at least that's my personal experience. I've tried both >ext3 and reiserfs. Even simple operations such as deleting files >suddenly take on the order of 10-20 minutes. > > I'm running some 3TB software arrays (12 * 250GB RAID5) with no trouble. I've opted for XFS over ext3 or reiserfs, and I see no trouble in accessing or deleting files. However, my Windows clients can't see the volume unless I tell them that it is less than 2TB ("max disk size" param in smb.conf). >I haven't got a ready explanation for why ext3 and reiser can't handle >TB sizes, but I'd definately advice you against a multi-TB setup using >Linux (at least until you find someone who has a working setup..) > > I would tend to agree, unless you use a 2.6 kernel, and XFS, then it's not a problem. Well, as far a software RAID goes anyway - I wish it handled trivial media errors more gracefully (ie, without dropping disks). You should always back-up your data. -CK