OpenSUSE 11 & 4 TB disk

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I have a 4 TB (mirrored) disk I want to put OpenSUSE 11 on.

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.

Here’s my partition

/ - 10GB

swap - 1GB

/boot - 500MB

/usr - 20GB

/var - 20GB

/tmp - 1GB

/backup1 - 1.1TB

(the rest of the 4TB disk is untouched)

I tried file system ext3, reiserfs and xfs with no luck

I see the whole 4TB disk as one single partition.

Any help on this would be much appreciated. Thanks.

#2

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

#3

There is a wiki article on installing openSUSE on very large disks that talks about partitioning in gpartd. It may or may not be helpful, but if you haven’t found it already, it will at least alert you to some GRUB issues you will have to likely resolve once you get the partitioning problem worked out. Here is the article: Installing on LARGE disks - openSUSE.

Good luck.

#4

Some things not mentioned to this point…

Be aware that by default 32-bit OS only support 4gb addressable virtual memory maps and 4gb partitions/volumes. You’ll need to install extensions (likely both hardware and software) to address larger sizes… Or, better yet install a 64-bit OS.

The other thing to consider is why you’d even want to consider a partition/volume that large. There is probably only one good reason, and that is if you need to create/run files that won’t fit in a smaller partition (eg. unpartitioned database files).

Otherwise, it’d be nuts to create a partition that large… There are good reasons to partition for reasons of performance (separating fragmented from unfragmented files), maintenance (I’d rather defragment 3gb of files that fragment rather than 4tb of both fragmented and unfragmented files), administration, backup, more.

#5

I think you’ll want to edit that a bit - 32bit definitely supports partitions/volumes larger than 4GB :wink:

#6

Note I said “by default” – Not that it’s not possible. Supporting larger volumes using 32-bit requires a combination of hardware and software extensions.

#7

The address size has nothing to do with default partition sizes on a hard drive. There is a relation to the max FILE size though. The address size effects the size of the page table but that is in RAM and effects the amount of RAM that can be addressed,but has nothing to do with partitions on the HD.

Take FAT32 for instance, it has a theoretical max partition size of 8 TB, regardless of whether the system is 32 or 64 bit. Number of clusters and max cluster size determine max partition size. No special hardware or software extensions required.

#8

Yeah,
You guys are right.
If I stopped to even think for a moment, it’s been a long time since I’ve installed a modern OS in a 4gb partition anyway… You’d likely run out of space in no time at all.