On Fri, 2 Jun 2006, Koos Meijering wrote:
I am trying to create on a nfs file server a partition with the size of 4TB every time after a reboot the system reports there is only a 2 TB partition and an unused part of the disk.
I have a 15 x 300 array under ext3 on the 3ware 9550SX-16ML. You need to use parted to create a GPT type partition system. MS-DOS style(default) does not allow you to create over 2 TB arrays. Then you can create your 4 TB partition. You'll always have to use parted instead of cfdisk/fdisk when playing with partitions, as cfdisk/fdisk will see the "fake" partition table GPT uses to point to the real table.
You'll also need large block device support compiled into your kernel. This implies a 2.6.x kernel.
Your other option is using the 2 TB carving of the 3ware card, and then using software raid or LVM to put that back together into a larger chunk.
Also, you won't be able to boot off this, as lilo/grub do not support booting from GPT style partitions.. I put a 16 meg CF card on a CF to IDE adapter, and put /boot on there, with my lilo boot loader running from the CF card.
Also, what hard drives are you using? You should be aware that currently Maxtor Maxline III's(7v300F0's) do not work properly due to a firmware bug. The current version shipping is VA111630, an update is available to VA111670 which merely reduces the frequency of timeouts that get the drive kicked out from the array. I will be getting VA111680 from Maxtor as soon as I find the time.
Mike