FreeBSD8.1 AMD64 UFS2 file system size issues.

[Troy Beisigl]

Thanks Matthew. I had to do a manual install using gpart in the fixit live cd to partition the filesystem. Everything looks to be running great. 

-Troy

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 5, 2010, at 12:53 AM, Matthew Seaman <m.seaman at infracaninophile.co.uk> wrote:

> On 04/09/2010 20:35:02, troy at i2bnetworks.com wrote:
> 
>> I am having a problem with a fresh install onto a    that is 9TB in
>> size. during the initial install, the syste   the correct disk size
>> and partition sizes, but after it has complete   d and rebooted it
>> shows the the large partition as only 1TB. I am using a 3w   message,
>> it shows that    On initial install, this is   Total disk size: Sep
>> 4 12:17:51 fi   (19531038720 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 1215   1G
>> da0s1a     /&nbs   4G     da0s1b  &nb   2G     da0s1d     36G
>> da0s1e &n   remainder da0s1f &nbs   Upon completion of insta   up as
>> this: Filesystem&nbs   on /dev/da0s1a    1012974  2   devfs
>> /dev/da0s1f 1094909108       4 10   /dev/da0s1e&nb   /dev/da0s1d
>> 2026030  &n   It was my understanding that UFS2 supports drive s
>> what I am trying to use. Is there something that I am doing
>> Thanks,
> 
> Weird.  Something seems to have eaten chunks out of your message.  I
> suspect a less than optimal conversion from HTML -- for best results
> write to FreeBSD lists in plain text.
> 
> Anyhow, you've got a system with 9TB disk but your big partition gets
> truncated?
> 
> It's not the limits in the UFS2 filesystem that are biting you: that can
> handle individual files of up to 32 PB (with the right options) and a
> total filesystem size of 1 YB.  You may not be familiar with Y 'Yotta'
> as an SI prefix: it means 10^24.  That's more than enough to boil the
> oceans should you attempt to create a filesystem of that size[*].
> 
> I suspect that you are running into limitations of the disk label.  The
> original Dos-derived MBR that you can manipulate with fdisk(8) is based
> around 32bit quantities and has an inherent limitation to 2TB per
> partition.  There are ways around this, not least by using the new
> gpart(8) disk partitioning.  See:
> http://www.freebsd.org/projects/bigdisk/index.html
> 
> Personally, I'd start again from scratch and install using both gpart(8)
> and zfs(1M).  Unfortunately sysinstall(8) can't handle doing that at the
> moment.  You need to follow a different procedure described here:
> http://wiki.freebsd.org/RootOnZFS/GPTZFSBoot/Mirror  (Or the equivalent
> pages for RAIDZ1 or RAIDZ2 if that's what you prefer)
> 
> Although ZFS's maximum size is /only/ 1 EB (individual file or whole
> filesystem) it should still suffice.  The compelling advantage with ZFS
> is the built-in checksumming of every data block.  That's important for
> large data volumes where bitwise errors can become significant.  Also,
> no need for fsck(8).  Not even background fsck.
> 
>    Cheers,
> 
>    Matthew
> 
> [*] Kids: don't try this at home.
> 
> -- 
> Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
>                                                  Flat 3
> PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey     Ramsgate
> JID: matthew at infracaninophile.co.uk               Kent, CT11 9PW
>