From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 10 18:39:51 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 187A41065672 for ; Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:39:51 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ivoras@gmail.com) Received: from mail-ew0-f208.google.com (mail-ew0-f208.google.com [209.85.219.208]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A21908FC13 for ; Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:39:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ewy4 with SMTP id 4so391691ewy.36 for ; Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:39:49 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:sender:received:in-reply-to :references:from:date:x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:to:cc :content-type; bh=n6TVWhPTXCDJ/9uqd1z/6M3UgfFvbGqWRPiG+TfCcos=; b=FNQQH3/nsieBHixq1PQpQsGkczWk+aSoPgCADu2Am0RqlIXSVUT6BrZ47BuWmg0gnZ +AtK5S0RNCWZwhzQqf26vAblJB02sNV5q3bHwb7G+qZxpkjayNUJ0XyfocXzV8vQ8x4L FYqb0NYP7CqxlkHq71QeCvTl+btwQ5hQrD1Go= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:from:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:to:cc:content-type; b=pjYsqaG4Wn8fXmTrGEH1jUaB0wsh8ljl01eFX/BXh9KC2RKnXTGa9Mq94Kp5/1UIWg Vx96afVsJzY60YUIfLpJeNNPRGXjNg7dwRKldTxhsAqREOUlGLt8mkBRwKww6kVawLdP SVd/9WTOGm0sRdJ1FQJHW1eUjG5/52/PlJnl8= MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: ivoras@gmail.com Received: by 10.216.26.77 with SMTP id b55mr476869wea.101.1252606315122; Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:11:55 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <4AA92EF1.6010804@eng.auth.gr> References: <4AA90D88.4010004@eng.auth.gr> <4AA92EF1.6010804@eng.auth.gr> From: Ivan Voras Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:11:35 +0200 X-Google-Sender-Auth: bebab007d7a96342 Message-ID: <9bbcef730909101111l2d3a4e31y4710175e19e3f870@mail.gmail.com> To: George Mamalakis Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD 8.0-BETA4 IBM ServerRaid 8k issues X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:39:51 -0000 2009/9/10 George Mamalakis : > Thank you for your answer again, and (now that you mentioned it:) ) in case > anyone knows whether we'll be able to see partitions > 2T in the future (or > now?!), please say how :). Actually, FreeBSD can use arbitrary sized drives and partitions (64-bit) but it's only the default partition scheme (bsdlabel) that doesn't support it. Since bsdlabel is used by the default installer (sysinstall), it means you can't install FreeBSD on such a setup, which is recognized to be a Bad Thing. The solution is to use a modern partitioning scheme like GPT (which has 64-bit limits) and then: a) partition the drive/array from a Live CD and do a manual install of FreeBSD from the installer CDs - which isn't as hard as it sounds, since it involves basically two steps: installing the boot loaders and unpacking the files or b) install on a smaller drive (or volume if your controller supports creating arbitrary volumes / partitions on top of RAID topology) and use this drive/volume for the OS, and then partition and use the larger array/volume for data. In either case, once you manually partition the drive/volume with GPT, you will encounter no further size limits. A really kludgy workaround, which I don't think you should use, is to create two partitions (I don't know if you could create more than two 2 TB partitions) and then use gconcat to concatenate them into a bigger "JBOD-style" software RAID device.