[sclug] LVM & 2Tb limit

[Alan Pearson]

On 15 Feb 2005, at 16:48, Martin Summers wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Redhat Enterprise tends to have 2.6 kernel functionality back ported 
> into 2.4, so you *should* be OK. It would be worth checking in the 
> docs for confirmation on this as I am only 50 % sure. The largest I 
> have ever done is 1.5 TB on Linux - this worked fine until it went 
> wrong one day...
>


I've found some info which says that RHEL 3 does NOT support block 
devices / filesystems larger than 2TB

http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php/id;403016224;fp;512;fpid;47886160


> My experience of large single volumes on linux are that if you ever 
> have a bad power failure or a situation where the machine crashes 
> badly, having to fix the filesystem will take forever (regardless of 
> if it is journaled or not) It took me 3 days non stop to fix my 
> filesystem on 1.5 TB, and even then, I had corrupt files. Restoring 
> from backup was the only thing to do. On a filesystem that size, it 
> may not be feasible to fsck it in a "reasonable" amount of time 
> (depending on what you call "reasonable". If you can break it down 
> into smaller partitions, you will be glad of it if you are ever in 
> this unfortunate positon (I speak from experience here !)

Interesting, what FS was it ?




> Also, backing up a filesystem that large is going to take time......

Backups, we don't need no stink'in backups !!!
Seriously !!!
The content is dynamic and changes regularly.
Also, it's sitting on multiple HW Raid devices.
So I can take around 8 disk failures (in the right places).


>
> I guess that's my two-penneth worth ;-)
>
> -Martin Summers