From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jun 26 00:05:03 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C446716A46B for ; Tue, 26 Jun 2007 00:05:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dom@bishnet.net) Received: from carrick.bishnet.net (carrick.bishnet.net [84.234.17.56]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8282313C455 for ; Tue, 26 Jun 2007 00:03:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dom@bishnet.net) Received: from cpc1-warw1-0-0-cust384.sol2.cable.ntl.com ([86.20.169.129] helo=magellan.dom.bishnet.net ident=mailnull) by carrick.bishnet.net with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.66 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1I2y9L-000BPH-OX for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Tue, 26 Jun 2007 00:39:15 +0100 Received: from monster.dom.bishnet.net ([192.168.3.100] helo=deimos) by magellan.dom.bishnet.net with esmtp (Exim 4.67 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1I2y9L-000Lle-8x for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Tue, 26 Jun 2007 00:39:15 +0100 From: "Dominic Bishop" To: Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 00:39:52 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.5510 Thread-Index: Ace3gh+7vLquM29ZQJGtUDiUzy/2nA== X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3138 X-Bishnet-MailScanner-Information: Contact postmaster@bishnet.net X-Bishnet-MailScanner-VirusCheck: Found to be clean X-Bishnet-MailScanner-SpamCheck: not spam, SpamAssassin (not cached, score=0.886, required 5, autolearn=not spam, AWL 0.75, BAYES_50 0.00, FORGED_RCVD_HELO 0.14, SPF_PASS -0.00) X-Bishnet-MailScanner-From: dom@bishnet.net Message-Id: <20070626000501.8282313C455@mx1.freebsd.org> Subject: Booting from a large RAID X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 00:05:03 -0000 I am looking to deploy some new fileservers shortly running on either RELENG_6_2 or RELENG_6, these servers will have 16x500GB SATA drives running on a 3ware 9650 raid controller. Ideally I would like this to be configured as a single large RAID5 or RAID6 array, however this leaves me problems with installing the OS. I can't use bsdlabel on a drive of this size as it has a 2TB limit, and as I understand it I can't use GPT and put the OS on there since the bootloader code isn't capable of booting from a GPT partition. At this point I'm assuming my only option is a separate small HD for the OS which can be partitioned using bsdlabel. Ideally I would rather not do this however as the server cases only have 16 drive bays so I'll have to sacrifice some capacity from the RAID in order to achieve this. Just want to make sure I am correctly understanding the limitations around what I want to do. Any comments/corrections to my line of thinking are welcome. Regards, Dominic Bishop