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hard disk size limits/PCI controller

hard disk size limits/PCI controller

Post by Chri » Thu, 23 Jan 2003 16:59:43



I am looking at installing a new hard disk in my linux server.  The machine
is quite old (AMD x5) so I will likely be purchasing a PCI controller for
the new hard disk.  My questions are as follows:

1. As long as I don't boot Linux off the new drive, is a new controller
necessary?  It should obviously give better performance, but great
performance isn't crucial here.  It's mainly just storing a lot of stuff
that doesn't need to be accessed in a hurry.

2. If I need a new controller, which ones have good Linux compatibility?

3. What are the size limitations for the Linux kernel on drives?  It seems
like the 2.2 kernels are limited to somewhere in the neighborhood of 130GB.
What about 2.4 kernels?  I am looking at 120GB and 200GB drives.

4.  What are filesystem size limitations?  I don't know the status of XFS on
Linux; I do know that could handle it.  What are the limitations for
ext2/ext3 fs and ReiserFS?

TIA,
Chris

 
 
 
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hard disk size limits/PCI controller

Post by John-Paul Stewar » Fri, 24 Jan 2003 00:58:43



> I am looking at installing a new hard disk in my linux server.  The machine
> is quite old (AMD x5) so I will likely be purchasing a PCI controller for
> the new hard disk.  My questions are as follows:

> 1. As long as I don't boot Linux off the new drive, is a new controller
> necessary?  It should obviously give better performance, but great
> performance isn't crucial here.  It's mainly just storing a lot of stuff
> that doesn't need to be accessed in a hurry.

No new controller is necessary.  Even if you boot from it,
song long as your /boot partition is in the portion of the
drive that is visible by your BIOS, you're OK.

 
 
 
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1. SCSI disk drive geometry limits hard disk choices?

In my attempts to get a HP C2247-300 1 Gb hard disk formatted
by Linux, I encountered a significant Linux limitation which
purchasers of hard disks should be made aware of (e.g. in the
FAQ).

In my setup fdisk wouldn't read the SCSI drive's geometry
parameters for reasons I'm still trying to understand; it may
be that the drive's SCSI ID number (7) conflicts with the
Future Domain (1680) controller's assignment for that number
which is usually reserved for SCSI tapes.  (It reported 0
heads, 0 cylinders, etc.)   Anyway, when I entered the
correct parameters into fdisk (13 heads, 1984 cyl, 56-96
sectors), I encountered a significant limitation: about 80
sectors are needed to achieve the disk's 1.05 Gb capacity,
yet Linux only supports <64 sectors per track).  At 63
sectors the disk formatted, but it gave me 75% of the blocks
that I anticipated.  This means that my 1.0 Gb disk is a 750
Mb disk under Linux!

Is my experience just an artifact of fdisk's inability to
correctly read the drive geometry as returned by the
controller's firmware?  Or, should users be told (in the FAQ)
that they need to carefully examine a drive's geometry to
determine if the 63 sector limit will limit their drive's
capacity?

In my case, for 1Gb, I will exchange the disk for one whose
cylinders * heads > 31,002.

Thanks for listening.


--

   candidate^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H, (got it!) Environmental
   Planning, UC Berkeley.  Phone: 510-848-1241

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