Topic: support of hard drive > 2 TB in SME server 9 ? [resolved]

[bunkobugsy]

Another alternative could be sgdisk (if it's available under RHEL)

http://www.cyber-tec.org/2012/04/07/sfdisk-for-gpt-we-use-sgdisk/

Copy the partition scheme from /dev/sda to /dev/sdb:

sgdisk -R=/dev/sdb /dev/sda

Now randomizes the GUID:

gdisk -G /dev/sdb

[guest22]

Another alternative could be sgdisk (if it's available under RHEL)

gdisk is available in the base repository for SME9. (yum install gdisk)


Best would be if you would add your comments to the bug instead of here. The devs will look at bugs rather then the forums.

[lloydh]

I thought I would add to this thread as it is about disks > 2TB.     I upgraded my server just over 2 years ago with 4 x 2TB HDD and I have run out of space again.      I want to replace the 4 x 2TB HDD with 6 x 4TB HDD to take me from 5.5TB to 19TB of storage with it all as one volume and preferably using xfs.

I have spent the last week reading that many articles that I became confused, I was trying to find a way around fdisk and it's 2TB limit and after some experimenting I think I have a way to do this at the moment on a test PC that has an Asus H170 Pro MB, similar to the MB in my server.      What follows is a bullet point description of what I have done.

• In BIOS enable UEFI and  choose “Other OS”, 1 x 500GB and 1 x 1TB sata disks installed.
• Boot from the Centos 6.7 Live DVD.
• Install gdisk, create a GPT partition on both disks and then partition sda1 and sdb1 as 500M with a GUID of fd00 (Linux RAID).     Then partition sda2 and sdb2 as 465G with a GUID of fd00 (Linux RAID).
• Run mdadm and create a RAID set md0 on sda1 and sdb1 with metadata=0.90 for booting.     Then  create a RAID set md1 on sda2 and sdb2 with default metadata.
• Create a pv on md1 and then create a vg called main.
• Boot off the SME Server 9.1 CD, select Advanced installation options and then select to install from the graphical interface.
• Select the normal options and then select Create Custom Layout for disks.
• Click on md0, tick the format box and set it up as /boot.
• Click on vg main, select edit and add lv root, mount point / of 30G, then add lv swap, mount point swap of 10G.
• Proceed with the installation, reboot and configure and then do an update.
• Install gdisk and xfsprogs.
• Create an lv called files in vg main using all the remaining space in main and format it with xfs.
• Make a backup of the directory structure below /home/e-smith/files and then delete all.
• Mount the new lv files using mount /dev/mapper/main-files -t xfs /home/e-smith/files.
• Make sure the lv is mounted and then copy the directory structure back to /home/e-smith/files.
• Edit /etc/fstab and add the entry for lv main-files then reboot and check that it has mounted correctly.

This is repeatable, I have done it twice so far with exactly the same result but I haven't done a lot of testing like creating users and testing access as a normal user which I will do.     I am assuming that there should be no real difference between doing this on the small HDD I used and doing it on some 4TB HDD, can anybody think of a reason why this wouldn't work with larger disks.

Code: [Select]

[root@test ~]# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1]
md0 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1]
      510912 blocks [2/2] [UU]
     
md1 : active raid1 sda2[0] sdb2[1]
      486943744 blocks super 1.2 [2/2] [UU]
      bitmap: 1/4 pages [4KB], 65536KB chunk

unused devices: <none>
[root@test ~]# mount
/dev/mapper/main-root on / type ext4 (rw,usrquota,grpquota)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/md0 on /boot type ext4 (rw)
/dev/mapper/main-files on /home/e-smith/files type xfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
[root@test ~]# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/main-root
                       29G  1.8G   26G   7% /
tmpfs                 3.8G     0  3.8G   0% /dev/shm
/dev/md0              476M   57M  394M  13% /boot
/dev/mapper/main-files
                      426G   33M  426G   1% /home/e-smith/files
[root@test ~]#

[kinjo]

i'm looking for a new 4TB HDD,
can anyone help me to find the best one?

[Stefano]

welcome here

my 2c: avoid "green" hds if you're thinking to use raid (and you're strongly encouraged to do so)
if you can, install SME on smaller disks then add the bigger ones following the howto you read above

that said, choose the one you prefer.. if you can, buy disks from different suppliers..

I have no experience with such disks, maybe someone else can help you more than me

[lloydh]

I prefer Hitachi HDD currently because of their good track record and I used Hitachi 4TB NAS HDD in my server.

[kinjo]

I found this article on google
http://www.deskdecode.com/top-best-4tb-hard-disk-drive-monthly-updated/
and they suggest me to buy Seagate Barracuda.
how about that?
 

[Stefano]

it's up to you