henders254 wrote:
> I have a 4 TB (mirrored) disk I want to put OpenSUSE 11 on.
A multi-terabyte filesytem is an EVIL thing. Can take
literally DAYS to fsck when you need to do an fsck.
While reiserfs can deal ok with these beasties… you’re
asking for major trouble with ext3.
>
> After I partition the disk I get the following message:
>
> “The disk label type on your system disk is GTP. Linux can
> handle a GTP partition table fine but most BIOS versions cannot
> handle the disk label. To remove GPT disk label from your disk, use the
> menu entry “delete partition table and disk label” of the Expert menu
> options.”
>
> when I do this, my partition table is deleted!
>
> Also, if I ignore the above message and go ahead, I get an error while
> the system configures the Grub boot loader - Error 22: No such
> partition. If I ignore this message & go ahead, I get a blank screen
> with a “-” blinking when I boot off the hard-disk. I tried Lilo as a
> boot loader but same thing happens.
Under LVM, large disks and partitions are VERY usable (well
apart from the filesystem evil listed above).
Jumping to a GPT partition label is just plain STUPID. Whoever
made that decision doesn’t know too much about dealing
with large disks and partitions the Linux way (must be some
Sun fanboys or somethin).
Best way to deal with a 4TB disk (I know because I’ve
handled 42TB SAN arrays this way), is to place the entire
drive under LVM control. However, this ideal situation
means having “something” as far as disk goes for at
least the root/boot/swap areas.
Using LVM, you remove the whole
partition table thing… not an issue. There isn’t a
partition table when a whole drive is placed under LVM.
SUSE’s yast partitioner doesn’t fully comprehend what
you can do with LVM… easier to setup a basic system
on a more normal disk (something SUSE understands) and
then add the monster driver later by hand (command line)
as an LVM PV.
But still… NO Linux filesystem works well in a multi-terabyte
fashion… however, if you’re talking <2TB, it’s ok… just
a long as you’re patient with fsck’s and such.
I would say… this is “just my opinion”, but I deal
with large storage under Linux on a daily basis… so
I’ll just say, I know of ways to deal with the problem.
YMMV
I don’t have 11.0 yet. So I’m not sure what works
and what doesn’t on that version.
Here’s a piece I did on LVM:
http://www.ntlug.org/Articles/LVM