Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 13:58:45 -0500 From: Eric Anderson <anderson@centtech.com> To: Scott Long <scottl@samsco.org> Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: UFS2 with 4TB disk _totally absurd_ Message-ID: <4436B665.9010200@centtech.com> In-Reply-To: <4435F4F2.2080301@samsco.org> References: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0604070025110.11218-100000@shell.dhp.com> <4435F4F2.2080301@samsco.org>
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Scott Long wrote: > Ensel Sharon wrote: >>> The FDISK and bsdlabel schemes simply cannot deal with >2TB. You'll >>> need to either put your filesystem directly on the storage device >>> without and slices/labels, or use GPT to create logical partitions. >> >> >> 2TB filesystems are _not large_. FreeBSD should expect 2-4TB filesystems >> to be in common use in peoples _living rooms_, never mind in the >> office or >> datacenter. >> >> So 5.x was a total wash in terms of UFS2 and snapshots, largefiles, etc., >> 6.0 still doesn't have working filesystem quotas or snapshots, and it >> seems, doesn't support modern (circa 2004) hard drives. >> >> Maybe a little less time working on FreeBSD 23.0 ... ? >> > > What are you talking about? UFS2, the filesystem, supports storage > volumes up to 2^63 blocks in size, and filesystems themselves of > more than 2^53 blocks in size. There is no 2TB limit in UFS2, and I've > personally created filesystems that are indeed much larger than that.. > These sizes were supported in 2004, and they are supported in 2006. > What is limited is the FDISK and BSDLABEL formats, which were designed > in the early 80's to handle up to 2^32 blocks. Neither of these prevent > you from creating a large filesystem. Maybe you're looking to have a > single large volume to hold both your boot filesystem and your data > filesystem? That's generally a bad idea since it puts more things into > the path of a failure. Try doing what most people do, which is to boot > off of a 2 disk mirror (go big and get 500GB disks if you want) and have > your data on a separate array that is more redundant and doesn't need to > use the above partition formats. > > Alternatively, find a PC that understands how to boot off of GPT > partitions, and use that format. It's not FreeBSD's fault that the PC > BIOS uses the FDISK format. Go complain to IBM and Microsoft for not > having the foresight to future-proof their partition format 25 years > ago. Now if only fsck could be fixed to actually be able to fsck a full >2TB filesystem with a reasonable amount of memory, without swapping forever. Even with journaling, you still need to be able to run fsck in case of very hard errors. Eric -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eric Anderson Sr. Systems Administrator Centaur Technology Anything that works is better than anything that doesn't. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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