[opensuse] >> 2.2TB disk
hi all, I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2. As SuSE isn't capable of doing that directly from YaST (at least in 12.1) i decided to put it on hold. But here: http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/D213A024C090CE9F862577D5... They write that specially patched verions on grub-legacy can do the trick also. So question is, does anybody knows if grub included on 12.1 has that particular patch? Kind regards, hans -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 02:27:27PM +0100, Hans Witvliet wrote:
I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2.
Lilo works. elilo might be an alternative too.
As SuSE isn't capable of doing that directly from YaST (at least in 12.1) i decided to put it on hold.
But here: http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/D213A024C090CE9F862577D5...
They write that specially patched verions on grub-legacy can do the trick also.
I guess they talk about http://en.openSUSE.org/SDB:Installing_on_LARGE_disks You better file a feature request to get this included or at least to get the feedback why not.
So question is, does anybody knows if grub included on 12.1 has that particular patch?
grub as part of openSUSE 12.1 has the first smaller part of this chnage set available from the openSUSE wiki. Lars -- Lars Müller [ˈlaː(r)z ˈmʏlɐ] Samba Team SUSE Linux, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 15:02 +0100, Lars Müller wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 02:27:27PM +0100, Hans Witvliet wrote:
I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2.
Lilo works. elilo might be an alternative too.
As SuSE isn't capable of doing that directly from YaST (at least in 12.1) i decided to put it on hold.
But here: http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/D213A024C090CE9F862577D5...
They write that specially patched verions on grub-legacy can do the trick also.
I guess they talk about http://en.openSUSE.org/SDB:Installing_on_LARGE_disks You better file a feature request to get this included or at least to get the feedback why not.
So question is, does anybody knows if grub included on 12.1 has that particular patch?
grub as part of openSUSE 12.1 has the first smaller part of this chnage set available from the openSUSE wiki.
Lars
Ok Lars, just did it. It is indeed the large disk feature. Eventhough the mentioned pathes are from 2005, it is becoming more relevant now, since 3TB disk are commonly found. Perhaps (i sincerely hope so) it is just a documentation feature.. Your feature has been created with id 313224. Regarding what tauno wrote: "Definining a small primary partition such as /boot as the first partition" I allways do so, but is not relevant to this feature. Point is, with disks/raids this large, you have a problem with making such a partition tabel (block numbers must use 64bit instead of 32-bit numbers) Heance either the patch, or grub2 hw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Hans Witvliet wrote:
I allways do so, but is not relevant to this feature. Point is, with disks/raids this large, you have a problem with making such a partition tabel (block numbers must use 64bit instead of 32-bit numbers)
Heance either the patch, or grub2
Or lilo. (works well, I tested it in Dec2010). -- Per Jessen, Zürich (-4.6°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 14:27 +0100, Hans Witvliet wrote:
I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2. As SuSE isn't capable of doing that directly from YaST (at least in 12.1) i decided to put it on hold.
Definining a small primary partition such as /boot as the first partition of the disk doesn't work? Personally, I consider this good practice anyway as even if your damage your 'live' partition /boot is likely unscathed.
But here: http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/D213A024C090CE9F862577D5... They write that specially patched verions on grub-legacy can do the trick also.
-- System & Network Administrator [ LPI & NCLA ] <http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com> OpenGroupware Developer <http://www.opengroupware.us> Adam Tauno Williams -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:45 AM, Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam@whitemice.org> wrote:
On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 14:27 +0100, Hans Witvliet wrote:
I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2. As SuSE isn't capable of doing that directly from YaST (at least in 12.1) i decided to put it on hold.
Definining a small primary partition such as /boot as the first partition of the disk doesn't work? Personally, I consider this good practice anyway as even if your damage your 'live' partition /boot is likely unscathed.
Adam, That workaround is not sufficient. First the basic problem: - greater than 2TB disks require GPT partitioning to access the full disk - Booting from GPT disk requires patched grub - Initrd needs a GPT patch (at least per the wiki page) - Booting a GPT disk requires EFI support in bios The article Lars pointed at http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Installing_on_LARGE_disks handles only the grub and initrd issues I think. Not the EFI issue. ===> a potential workaround for the EFI issue, and I've NEVER tried this. I think you can have both a MS-DOS partition table and GPT. The MS-DOS partition table has to kept in sync with the GPT table. Then create a /boot that is in the first 2 TB of the drive and make sure both partition tables know about it. That will allow grub to boot I "think" there is then a way to tell linux to ignore the MS-DOS partition table and use the GPT table instead. So make sure you configure that as well. ==== If someone knows the details on that or even that what I said about EFI is true, then the wiki page about should be updated to address that. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Greg Freemyer wrote:
Definining a small primary partition such as /boot as the first
partition of the disk doesn't work? Personally, I consider this good practice anyway as even if your damage your 'live' partition /boot is likely unscathed. Adam,
That workaround is not sufficient.
What happens if RAID or LVM is used? A few months ago, I built a system with 4 1TB drives in a RAID5 array with LVM on top. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:35 AM, James Knott <james.knott@rogers.com> wrote:
Greg Freemyer wrote:
Definining a small primary partition such as /boot as the first
partition of the disk doesn't work? Personally, I consider this good practice anyway as even if your damage your 'live' partition /boot is likely unscathed.
Adam,
That workaround is not sufficient.
What happens if RAID or LVM is used? A few months ago, I built a system with 4 1TB drives in a RAID5 array with LVM on top.
If the user wants to "partition" their 3TB drive, then a GPT partition table is required and RAID / LVM doesn't help. The other option is to leave the 3TB drive unpartitioned. Can opensuse use a unpartitioned 3TB drive as a PV for LVM, then boot from one of the LVs with no physical partitions at all? I don't know, I always partition my drives. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Greg Freemyer wrote:
The other option is to leave the 3TB drive unpartitioned.
Can opensuse use a unpartitioned 3TB drive as a PV for LVM, then boot from one of the LVs with no physical partitions at all? I don't know, I always partition my drives.
I don't know about the boot issues but I wouldn't recommend using an unpartitioned drive for LVM. It's all too easy to run a command that assumes some other structure at the beginning of the disk (MBR etc or whatever) and overwrite the LVM metadata. It's recoverable, of course, but is an unwanted and unnecessary pain. IIRC, using a raw disk is also officially deprecated. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Dave Howorth wrote:
Greg Freemyer wrote:
The other option is to leave the 3TB drive unpartitioned.
Can opensuse use a unpartitioned 3TB drive as a PV for LVM, then boot from one of the LVs with no physical partitions at all? I don't know, I always partition my drives. I don't know about the boot issues but I wouldn't recommend using an unpartitioned drive for LVM. It's all too easy to run a command that assumes some other structure at the beginning of the disk (MBR etc or whatever) and overwrite the LVM metadata. It's recoverable, of course, but is an unwanted and unnecessary pain. IIRC, using a raw disk is also officially deprecated.
I thought the OP mentioned "drives", not a single drive. If so, then RAID is a possibility, with LVM on the RAID array. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 11:12 AM, James Knott <james.knott@rogers.com> wrote:
I thought the OP mentioned "drives", not a single drive. If so, then RAID is a possibility, with LVM on the RAID array.
The OP said 3TB drives. As long as 3TB physical drives are involved, you have to address the GPT issue(s). The current Windows solution I believe is to only support GPT on data drives, not boot drives. I believe opensuse supports that relatively easily as well. It is when you want to boot off of 3TB drives you have problems. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Greg Freemyer wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 11:12 AM, James Knott <james.knott@rogers.com> wrote:
I thought the OP mentioned "drives", not a single drive. If so, then RAID is a possibility, with LVM on the RAID array.
The OP said 3TB drives. As long as 3TB physical drives are involved, you have to address the GPT issue(s).
The current Windows solution I believe is to only support GPT on data drives, not boot drives. I believe opensuse supports that relatively easily as well.
It does, yes, and has for quite a while.
It is when you want to boot off of 3TB drives you have problems.
Indeed so. Or difficulties at least :) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 02/13/2012 08:18 AM, Greg Freemyer wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 11:12 AM, James Knott<james.knott@rogers.com> wrote:
I thought the OP mentioned "drives", not a single drive. If so, then RAID is a possibility, with LVM on the RAID array. The OP said 3TB drives. As long as 3TB physical drives are involved, you have to address the GPT issue(s).
The current Windows solution I believe is to only support GPT on data drives, not boot drives. I believe opensuse supports that relatively easily as well.
It is when you want to boot off of 3TB drives you have problems.
Here's my recent experience. I established a new account with a hosting provider that included a single 3-TB disk option. While I usually install openSuSE via KVM over IP, in this case the technicians on-site made the 12.1 install for me. The install went well, or so they thought, until first boot. I asked them to partition the drive thusly. I forgot about the big-disk issue. GNU Parted 2.4 Using /dev/sda Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands. (parted) p Model: ATA WDC WD30EZRS-00J (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 3001GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: gpt_sync_mbr Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 206MB 204MB ext2 primary boot 2 206MB 312MB 107MB ext2 primary 3 312MB 11.0GB 10.7GB linux-swap(v1) primary 4 11.0GB 54.0GB 43.0GB xfs primary 5 54.0GB 97.0GB 43.0GB xfs primary 6 97.0GB 3001GB 2904GB xfs primary (I like to have two boot and root partitions to allow easy upgrades) Note that fdisk reports: Disk /dev/sda: 3000.6 GB, 3000592982016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 364801 cylinders, total 5860533168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 401407 199680 83 Linux /dev/sda2 401408 610303 104448 83 Linux /dev/sda3 610304 21575679 10482688 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda4 1 1 0+ ee GPT Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary. Partition table entries are not in disk order Since I don't have physical access to the box the guys at the NOC worked on the issue. I gave them a link showing how to patch old-grub to support large disks, but they didn't need it. One of the guys discovered that the motherboard allows selection of EFT as a BIOS boot option. Enabling that one mobo option allowed the box to boot. I don't know how this will affect my next upgrade, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Regards, Lew -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 11:12 -0500, James Knott wrote:
Dave Howorth wrote:
Greg Freemyer wrote:
The other option is to leave the 3TB drive unpartitioned.
Can opensuse use a unpartitioned 3TB drive as a PV for LVM, then boot from one of the LVs with no physical partitions at all? I don't know, I always partition my drives. I don't know about the boot issues but I wouldn't recommend using an unpartitioned drive for LVM. It's all too easy to run a command that assumes some other structure at the beginning of the disk (MBR etc or whatever) and overwrite the LVM metadata. It's recoverable, of course, but is an unwanted and unnecessary pain. IIRC, using a raw disk is also officially deprecated.
I thought the OP mentioned "drives", not a single drive. If so, then RAID is a possibility, with LVM on the RAID array.
Correct! afaics you meet this problem in several situations: A) a single disk, larger than 2.2 TB B) several smaller disk, forming a RAID with a combined total size larger than 2.2 TB C) Combination of A) and B) I got a couple of 3TB disks and wanted to make a "raid 1+0" Not shure i can stuff more than the planned four disks... But if so, it would only solve the booting issue Anyway, i understand that it is still "an issue" in general. Hans -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Hans Witvliet wrote:
B) several smaller disk, forming a RAID with a combined total size larger than 2.2 TB
The server I built a few months ago had 4 1 TB drives in a RAID5 array and LVM on top. It had no problem booting openSUSE 11.4. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Greg Freemyer wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:45 AM, Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam@whitemice.org> wrote:
On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 14:27 +0100, Hans Witvliet wrote:
I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2. As SuSE isn't capable of doing that directly from YaST (at least in 12.1) i decided to put it on hold.
Definining a small primary partition such as /boot as the first partition of the disk doesn't work? Personally, I consider this good practice anyway as even if your damage your 'live' partition /boot is likely unscathed.
Adam,
That workaround is not sufficient.
First the basic problem:
- greater than 2TB disks require GPT partitioning to access the full disk - Booting from GPT disk requires patched grub
- Initrd needs a GPT patch (at least per the wiki page)
I tested booting from 3TB disk with GPT+lilo in Dec2010, no patch needed.
- Booting a GPT disk requires EFI support in bios
Possibly, my test system was an old(ish) HP or IBM desktop, I don't know if it had EFI support. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (-4.6°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 19:23 +0100, Per Jessen wrote:
Greg Freemyer wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:45 AM, Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam@whitemice.org> wrote:
On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 14:27 +0100, Hans Witvliet wrote:
I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2. As SuSE isn't capable of doing that directly from YaST (at least in 12.1) i decided to put it on hold.
Definining a small primary partition such as /boot as the first partition of the disk doesn't work? Personally, I consider this good practice anyway as even if your damage your 'live' partition /boot is likely unscathed.
Adam,
That workaround is not sufficient.
First the basic problem:
- greater than 2TB disks require GPT partitioning to access the full disk - Booting from GPT disk requires patched grub
- Initrd needs a GPT patch (at least per the wiki page)
I tested booting from 3TB disk with GPT+lilo in Dec2010, no patch needed.
Ok, will give it a try, next week Tnx -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Hans Witvliet wrote:
I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2.
A 3 TB disk has to be mainly for data storage, as also indicated by its intended use. Personally, I always use a separate system disk on machines with large data disks. Years ago I was told that this was an especially good idea for NFS performance, but I don't remember why and I expect it may have changed. But I find it easier to manage disk replacements when the system disk does not contain main data stores and vice-versa. And I also don't have a problem with booting off large disks. Just my 2p worth. Cheers, Dave PS sorry for the double copy Hans, I pressed the wrong reply button. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 2/13/2012 8:27 AM, Hans Witvliet wrote:
hi all,
I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2.
As SuSE isn't capable of doing that directly from YaST (at least in 12.1) i decided to put it on hold.
But here: http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/D213A024C090CE9F862577D5...
They write that specially patched verions on grub-legacy can do the trick also.
So question is, does anybody knows if grub included on 12.1 has that particular patch?
Kind regards, hans
Boot from a usb thumb drive instead of from the disk. You can use a disk that large as a filesystem just fine as long as you aren't trying to boot from it. They have stubby little usb drives now that don't stick out further than all the cable plugs and aren't a special risk of breaking off from cables pulling, elbows, chair legs etc. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
participants (9)
-
Adam Tauno Williams -
Brian K. White -
Dave Howorth -
Greg Freemyer -
Hans Witvliet -
James Knott -
Lars Müller -
Lew Wolfgang -
Per Jessen