large disk > 8 TB

[Lan Tran]

Michael Fuckner wrote:
> Lan Tran wrote:
>   
>> I have a Dell PERC 6/E controller connected to an external Dell MD1000
>> storage, which I set up RAID 6 for.  The RAID BIOS reports 8.5 TB.  I
>> installed 7BETA4 amd64 and Sysinstall/dmesg.boot detects this correctly:
>> mfid1: <MFI Logical Disk> on mfi1
>> mfid1: 8578560MB (17568890880 sectors) RAID volume 'raid6' is optimal"
>>
>> However, after I created a zfs zpool on this device it only shows 185
>> GB. # zpool create tank /dev/mfid1s1d
>> # zpool list
>> NAME                    SIZE    USED   AVAIL    CAP  HEALTH     ALTROOT
>> tank                    185G    111K    185G     0%  ONLINE     -
>>
>> also with 'dh':
>> # df -h tank
>> Filesystem    Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
>> tank          182G      0B    182G     0%    /tank
>>
>>     
>
> The main purpose of ZFS is doing Software raid (which is even faster
> than HW Raid nowadays).
>
> You should export all disks seperately to the OS- and then you don't
> have the 4GB limit wrapping the size to 185GB.
>
> Regards,
>   Michael
>   
Hi Michael,

I took your advice and went with ZFS software raid. There are 15-750 GB 
SATA2 disks and I want the most space, easy management and reliability.  
Performance (read/write) is not a big concern since it's a mail 
archiving system.   I chose raidz2 + 2 hot spares.  Getting about 65 
MB/s write performance from 'dd'.

# zpool status
  pool: tank
 state: ONLINE
 scrub: none requested
config:

        NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        tank        ONLINE       0     0     0
          raidz2    ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid1   ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid2   ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid3   ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid4   ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid5   ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid6   ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid7   ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid8   ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid9   ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid10  ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid11  ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid12  ONLINE       0     0     0
            mfid13  ONLINE       0     0     0
        spares
          mfid14    AVAIL  
          mfid15    AVAIL  

errors: No known data errors

Thanks!

Lan