[gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[felix]

I have an ancient system which was quite the bee's knees in its day 8 years ago, but is showing its age.

I plugged two 4TB SATA drives in and the BIOS hangs trying to display the disk size.  Whether it is the size itself, or from using 4K blocks, I do not know.

I bought a USB 3.0 disk enclosure and the system refused to even acknowledge its presence.  USB 3.0 may be advertised as backwards compatible, but not on my system.

I put one of the drives into an old USB 2.0 enclosure, and while it was found and useable, it saw the size as 1.6TB.

I can't get a USB 3.0 PCI card; there are PCI-e cards, but my system is PCI and PCI-X.

I did get a SATA II PCI card (SATA III requires PCI-e), but won't get a chance to plug it in for a few days.  I'm hoping it will let me use the 4T drives.

Does anyone know of any verified cheap tricks to make this old system recognize the 4TB drives properly?  I'm not interested in any NAS or other expensive solutions; I'd just as soon buy a cheap modern system and lots of USB 3.0 disk enclosures.  But I'd rather not go that route yet.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Bill Kenworthy]

On Sun, 2012-06-17 at 23:16 -0700, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> I have an ancient system which was quite the bee's knees in its day 8 years ago, but is showing its age.
> 
> I plugged two 4TB SATA drives in and the BIOS hangs trying to display the disk size.  Whether it is the size itself, or from using 4K blocks, I do not know.
> 
> I bought a USB 3.0 disk enclosure and the system refused to even acknowledge its presence.  USB 3.0 may be advertised as backwards compatible, but not on my system.
> 
> I put one of the drives into an old USB 2.0 enclosure, and while it was found and useable, it saw the size as 1.6TB.
> 
> I can't get a USB 3.0 PCI card; there are PCI-e cards, but my system is PCI and PCI-X.
> 
> I did get a SATA II PCI card (SATA III requires PCI-e), but won't get a chance to plug it in for a few days.  I'm hoping it will let me use the 4T drives.
> 
> Does anyone know of any verified cheap tricks to make this old system recognize the 4TB drives properly?  I'm not interested in any NAS or other expensive solutions; I'd just as soon buy a cheap modern system and lots of USB 3.0 disk enclosures.  But I'd rather not go that route yet.
> 

32bit or 64 bit system?

Kernel options for large file systems?

BillK

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[felix]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 02:35:03PM +0800, Bill Kenworthy wrote:
> 32bit or 64 bit system?

Dual opteron, ~amd64.

> Kernel options for large file systems?

Yes.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sun, 17 Jun 2012 23:16:24 -0700, felix@crowfix.com wrote:

> I plugged two 4TB SATA drives in and the BIOS hangs trying to display
> the disk size.  Whether it is the size itself, or from using 4K blocks,
> I do not know.

Have you updated the BIOS to the latest available version?


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Windows Error #56: Operator fell asleep while waiting.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[felix]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 09:06:54AM +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sun, 17 Jun 2012 23:16:24 -0700, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> 
> > I plugged two 4TB SATA drives in and the BIOS hangs trying to display
> > the disk size.  Whether it is the size itself, or from using 4K blocks,
> > I do not know.
> 
> Have you updated the BIOS to the latest available version?

No, didn't even think about that.  I've never upgraded BIOS an any of
my systems.  It's a Tyan S2882 Thunder K8S Pro.  Guess I'll google for that.


-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[felix]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 06:11:31AM -0700, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 09:06:54AM +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > On Sun, 17 Jun 2012 23:16:24 -0700, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> > 
> > > I plugged two 4TB SATA drives in and the BIOS hangs trying to display
> > > the disk size.  Whether it is the size itself, or from using 4K blocks,
> > > I do not know.
> > 
> > Have you updated the BIOS to the latest available version?
> 
> No, didn't even think about that.  I've never upgraded BIOS an any of
> my systems.  It's a Tyan S2882 Thunder K8S Pro.  Guess I'll google for that.

Found a Tyan page for my motherboard.  Didn't see any obvious fixes
for SATA size.  I also don't remember my BIOS version, I'll have to
check that.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 06:24:16 -0700, felix@crowfix.com wrote:

> Found a Tyan page for my motherboard.  Didn't see any obvious fixes
> for SATA size.  I also don't remember my BIOS version, I'll have to
> check that.

lshw will show you the BIOs version without rebooting.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

The thrill of victory, the agony of delete.

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[gentoo-user] Re: Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[walt]

On 06/17/2012 11:16 PM, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> I bought a USB 3.0 disk enclosure and the system refused to even
> acknowledge its presence.

By 'system' do you mean the BIOS, or the kernel driver?

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[felix]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 06:59:13AM -0700, walt wrote:
> On 06/17/2012 11:16 PM, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> > I bought a USB 3.0 disk enclosure and the system refused to even
> > acknowledge its presence.
> 
> By 'system' do you mean the BIOS, or the kernel driver?

I plugged them into the USB after boot, so it's the kernel.  I didn't try booting with them.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

[gentoo-user] Re: Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[walt]

On 06/18/2012 07:28 AM, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 06:59:13AM -0700, walt wrote:
>> On 06/17/2012 11:16 PM, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
>>> I bought a USB 3.0 disk enclosure and the system refused to even 
>>> acknowledge its presence.
>> 
>> By 'system' do you mean the BIOS, or the kernel driver?
> 
> I plugged them into the USB after boot, so it's the kernel.  I didn't
> try booting with them.
> 

I have an outboard usb3 docking station that needs the xhci driver.
Do you have that driver enabled?  Maybe one of the many rescue/install
CD's will recognize the drive/enclosure combination?

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[felix]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 04:46:15PM -0700, walt wrote:
> On 06/18/2012 07:28 AM, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 06:59:13AM -0700, walt wrote:
> >> On 06/17/2012 11:16 PM, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> >>> I bought a USB 3.0 disk enclosure and the system refused to even 
> >>> acknowledge its presence.
> >> 
> >> By 'system' do you mean the BIOS, or the kernel driver?
> > 
> > I plugged them into the USB after boot, so it's the kernel.  I didn't
> > try booting with them.
> > 
> 
> I have an outboard usb3 docking station that needs the xhci driver.
> Do you have that driver enabled?  Maybe one of the many rescue/install
> CD's will recognize the drive/enclosure combination?

Compiled as a module, and not loaded.  Hadn't thought of that.  I'll
try it when I get back there.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[pk]

On 2012-06-18 08:16, felix@crowfix.com wrote:

> I plugged two 4TB SATA drives in and the BIOS hangs trying to display the disk size.
>Whether it is the size itself, or from using 4K blocks, I do not know.

This is a bit confusing. Do you mean to say that these are 4TB internal
drives (3.5")? I can't find any manufacturer that manufactures this size
(yet)... Or is it 2x 2TB harddrives in a USB3 enclosure? There are
plenty of those it seems from Seagate, Western digital etc...

>I bought a USB 3.0 disk enclosure and the system refused to even acknowledge its presence.
>USB 3.0 may be advertised as backwards compatible, but not on my system.

If possible try a BIOS upgrade... if not you can always try this (no
guarantees though):
http://www.addonics.com/products/ad2u3pci.php

> I put one of the drives into an old USB 2.0 enclosure, and while it was found and useable,
>it saw the size as 1.6TB.

For a 2TB a usable size of 1.6TB sounds about right...

> I can't get a USB 3.0 PCI card; there are PCI-e cards, but my system is PCI and PCI-X.

See above...

Maybe more questions than answers but hopefully they will give you a
clue or two for the correct answer(s)...

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 10:12 AM, pk <peterk2@coolmail.se> wrote:
> On 2012-06-18 08:16, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
>
>> I plugged two 4TB SATA drives in and the BIOS hangs trying to display the disk size.
>>Whether it is the size itself, or from using 4K blocks, I do not know.
>
> This is a bit confusing. Do you mean to say that these are 4TB internal
> drives (3.5")? I can't find any manufacturer that manufactures this size
> (yet)... Or is it 2x 2TB harddrives in a USB3 enclosure? There are
> plenty of those it seems from Seagate, Western digital etc...

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST4000DX000/dp/B005WX3NEU/

"Seagate Barracuda 7200 4 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 128MB Cache
3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive"

It does bring to mind a question...when I went to put SATAII drives in
a SATA box, I needed to flip a jumper on the drive so that it would
operate at 1.5Gb/s instead of 3Gb/s. Felix, did you follow any
analogous steps for the 4TB drives?

(Cripes, that's a lot of data. One drive, bigger than any of my
aggregate volumes.)

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[felix]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 10:24:58AM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 10:12 AM, pk <peterk2@coolmail.se> wrote:
> > On 2012-06-18 08:16, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> >
> >> I plugged two 4TB SATA drives in and the BIOS hangs trying to display the disk size.
> >>Whether it is the size itself, or from using 4K blocks, I do not know.
> >
> > This is a bit confusing. Do you mean to say that these are 4TB internal
> > drives (3.5")? I can't find any manufacturer that manufactures this size
> > (yet)... Or is it 2x 2TB harddrives in a USB3 enclosure? There are
> > plenty of those it seems from Seagate, Western digital etc...
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST4000DX000/dp/B005WX3NEU/
> 
> "Seagate Barracuda 7200 4 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 128MB Cache
> 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive"
> 
> It does bring to mind a question...when I went to put SATAII drives in
> a SATA box, I needed to flip a jumper on the drive so that it would
> operate at 1.5Gb/s instead of 3Gb/s. Felix, did you follow any
> analogous steps for the 4TB drives?

I don't remember seeing any jumpers at all.  I'll take another look when I get back there.

> (Cripes, that's a lot of data. One drive, bigger than any of my
> aggregate volumes.)

I remember buying a 330MB ATA drive for $300 and being amazed it was
less than $1/MB.  These were $299 at Fry's, 10 cents per GB.  Don't
know what I'll do with 8TB but I am sure it will fill up sooner rather
than later.  If nothing else, I'll snapshot the system files every
night and take a year to fill it up.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Stroller]

On 18 June 2012, at 15:39, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
>> ...
>> It does bring to mind a question...when I went to put SATAII drives in
>> a SATA box, I needed to flip a jumper on the drive so that it would
>> operate at 1.5Gb/s instead of 3Gb/s. Felix, did you follow any
>> analogous steps for the 4TB drives?
> 
> I don't remember seeing any jumpers at all.  I'll take another look when I get back there.

With some drives this is done in software / firmware.

I think you mentioned these drives are Hitachi - previous models of their drives were set using their "Hard-drive Feature Tool" bootable CD (e.g. ftool_215.iso). This now appears to be obsolete, but they may offer a newer alternative.

From experience, if the motherboard / SATA controller is old enough you will *definitely* have to set the drives to 1.5Gb/s.

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Michael Mol]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 10:42 AM, Stroller
<stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On 18 June 2012, at 15:39, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
>>> ...
>>> It does bring to mind a question...when I went to put SATAII drives in
>>> a SATA box, I needed to flip a jumper on the drive so that it would
>>> operate at 1.5Gb/s instead of 3Gb/s. Felix, did you follow any
>>> analogous steps for the 4TB drives?
>>
>> I don't remember seeing any jumpers at all.  I'll take another look when I get back there.
>
> With some drives this is done in software / firmware.
>
> I think you mentioned these drives are Hitachi - previous models of their drives were set using their "Hard-drive Feature Tool" bootable CD (e.g. ftool_215.iso). This now appears to be obsolete, but they may offer a newer alternative.
>
> From experience, if the motherboard / SATA controller is old enough you will *definitely* have to set the drives to 1.5Gb/s.

A thought...if the system is old enough that it only has PCI and PCI-X
(as opposed to PCIe), then it's definitely not going to have USB3.

Perhaps putting attaching the USB3 enclosure to the system by way of a
USB2 hub might work?

Otherwise, the firmware adjustment might be the way to go. (Or a
motherboard upgrade...)


-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[felix]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 10:49:48AM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> A thought...if the system is old enough that it only has PCI and PCI-X
> (as opposed to PCIe), then it's definitely not going to have USB3.
> 
> Perhaps putting attaching the USB3 enclosure to the system by way of a
> USB2 hub might work?

No USB 3 on the motherboard.  I tried a USB 3 enclosure but got zero
response from Linux when plugging it in.  Didn't even show up in
/var/log/messages.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Michael Mol]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 12:05 PM,  <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 10:49:48AM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
>> A thought...if the system is old enough that it only has PCI and PCI-X
>> (as opposed to PCIe), then it's definitely not going to have USB3.
>>
>> Perhaps putting attaching the USB3 enclosure to the system by way of a
>> USB2 hub might work?
>
> No USB 3 on the motherboard.  I tried a USB 3 enclosure but got zero
> response from Linux when plugging it in.  Didn't even show up in
> /var/log/messages.

I saw that. My thought is that the the USB3 enclosure might interact
better with the hardware on the USB2 hub than directly with the
hardware on the motherboard.

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[pk]

On 2012-06-18 16:24, Michael Mol wrote:

> http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST4000DX000/dp/B005WX3NEU/
> 
> "Seagate Barracuda 7200 4 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 128MB Cache
> 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive"

Hm... then Seagate needs to update their product page:
http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/internal-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/barracuda/#

No 4TB in sight... oh, well. Or maybe it's one of those magical drives
I've read about[1]... ;-)

> It does bring to mind a question...when I went to put SATAII drives in
> a SATA box, I needed to flip a jumper on the drive so that it would
> operate at 1.5Gb/s instead of 3Gb/s. Felix, did you follow any
> analogous steps for the 4TB drives?

That would be a possibility of course... but if that fails he also have
this option:
http://www.areca.com.tw/products/pcix.htm
(I'm sure there are similar options from other manufacturers)...

[1]
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/04/08/170235/magical-chinese-hard-drive

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[felix]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 04:48:09PM +0200, pk wrote:
> That would be a possibility of course... but if that fails he also have
> this option:
> http://www.areca.com.tw/products/pcix.htm
> (I'm sure there are similar options from other manufacturers)...

My google-fu is deteriorating.  I didn't see this or the USB 3.0 PCI
card, everything was for PCI-e.

This motherboard has some weird mixture of PCI and PXI-X slots.  Don't
remember the tricks right now, but I can't put a good graphics card in
it without slowing down the SCSI drives, I think.  Since it's a server
mostly, that doesn't matter, but I'll have to refresh my memory before
getting this card.  Thanks for the lead.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 10:48 AM, pk <peterk2@coolmail.se> wrote:
> On 2012-06-18 16:24, Michael Mol wrote:
>
>> http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST4000DX000/dp/B005WX3NEU/
>>
>> "Seagate Barracuda 7200 4 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 128MB Cache
>> 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive"
>
> Hm... then Seagate needs to update their product page:
> http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/internal-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/barracuda/#
>
> No 4TB in sight... oh, well. Or maybe it's one of those magical drives
> I've read about[1]... ;-)

Read the reviews on the Amazon page. It sounds like Seagate's selling
the 4TB drives, but only in USB enclosures. Reseller are taking the
3.5" drive out of the enclosure and reselling them individually at a
markup.

I only posted the link to the Seagate drive, since that was the first
one that popped up in my search. Point is, the 4TB drives do exist.

[snip]
-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[pk]

On 2012-06-18 16:57, Michael Mol wrote:

> I only posted the link to the Seagate drive, since that was the first
> one that popped up in my search. Point is, the 4TB drives do exist.

Hm, now that you mentioned it I think I've read something about this a
while ago (long enough time has gone for me to forget it though... :-).

And yes, I knew they were in the "works" but I didn't know they were
selling them... Hitachi (GST owned by Western digital) apparently sells
4TB internal drives (without enclosures)... %-}

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Alan McKinnon]

On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 10:24:58 -0400
Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:

[snip]

> Felix, did you follow any
> analogous steps for the 4TB drives?
> 
> (Cripes, that's a lot of data. One drive, bigger than any of my
> aggregate volumes.)


Completely OT but what the heck: :-)

I built a 12TB FreeNAS Storage box for the home and dared the wife to
fill it with content. For purposes of illustration I told her that this
was an awful lot of data - 1357 raw DVD movie rips for example.

"Go for it honey!" I said thinking the myself "She will NEVER fill that,
or even come close!"

The joke's on me. After 6 weeks, she's halfway there  ^_^



-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Pandu Poluan]

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On Jun 19, 2012 6:45 AM, "Alan McKinnon" <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 10:24:58 -0400
> Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > Felix, did you follow any
> > analogous steps for the 4TB drives?
> >
> > (Cripes, that's a lot of data. One drive, bigger than any of my
> > aggregate volumes.)
>
>
> Completely OT but what the heck: :-)
>
> I built a 12TB FreeNAS Storage box for the home and dared the wife to
> fill it with content. For purposes of illustration I told her that this
> was an awful lot of data - 1357 raw DVD movie rips for example.
>
> "Go for it honey!" I said thinking the myself "She will NEVER fill that,
> or even come close!"
>
> The joke's on me. After 6 weeks, she's halfway there  ^_^
>

Lucky you didn't challenge her to max out your Platinum credit card ;-)

Rgds,

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Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 08:30:33 +0700, Pandu Poluan wrote:

> Lucky you didn't challenge her to max out your Platinum credit card ;-)

That's implicit in the wedding vows :(


-- 
Neil Bothwick

A. Top posters.
Q. What is the most annoying thing on Usenet?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[J. Roeleveld]

On Tue, June 19, 2012 12:06 pm, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 08:30:33 +0700, Pandu Poluan wrote:
>
>> Lucky you didn't challenge her to max out your Platinum credit card ;-)
>
> That's implicit in the wedding vows :(

That can be solved by making sure she has a decent paying job herself :)

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 12:54:26 +0200, J. Roeleveld wrote:

> >> Lucky you didn't challenge her to max out your Platinum credit
> >> card ;-)  
> >
> > That's implicit in the wedding vows :(  
> 
> That can be solved by making sure she has a decent paying job herself :)

That worked for you??? :-O


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Access denied--nah nah na nah nah!

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Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[J. Roeleveld]

On Tue, June 19, 2012 4:02 pm, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 12:54:26 +0200, J. Roeleveld wrote:
>
>> >> Lucky you didn't challenge her to max out your Platinum credit
>> >> card ;-)
>> >
>> > That's implicit in the wedding vows :(
>>
>> That can be solved by making sure she has a decent paying job herself :)
>
> That worked for you??? :-O

Actually, it did :)

Might help that my wife also works in IT...


-- 
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 10:24:58 -0400
> Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> Felix, did you follow any
>> analogous steps for the 4TB drives?
>>
>> (Cripes, that's a lot of data. One drive, bigger than any of my
>> aggregate volumes.)
>
> Completely OT but what the heck: :-)
>
> I built a 12TB FreeNAS Storage box for the home and dared the wife to
> fill it with content. For purposes of illustration I told her that this
> was an awful lot of data - 1357 raw DVD movie rips for example.
>
> "Go for it honey!" I said thinking the myself "She will NEVER fill that,
> or even come close!"
>
> The joke's on me. After 6 weeks, she's halfway there  ^_^
>

Well, I got a 750Gb drive and it is full.  Good thing I use LVM.  I had
to add a 250Gb drive and it's filling up too.  I'm still trying to get
to where I can afford a 3Tb.  Maybe that will take me a while to fill
up.  o_O 

If I had a really fast DSL or a cable connection, oh boy.  It wouldn't
last long. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[J. Roeleveld]

On Tue, June 19, 2012 1:37 am, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 10:24:58 -0400
> Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> Felix, did you follow any
>> analogous steps for the 4TB drives?
>>
>> (Cripes, that's a lot of data. One drive, bigger than any of my
>> aggregate volumes.)
>
>
> Completely OT but what the heck: :-)
>
> I built a 12TB FreeNAS Storage box for the home and dared the wife to
> fill it with content. For purposes of illustration I told her that this
> was an awful lot of data - 1357 raw DVD movie rips for example.
>
> "Go for it honey!" I said thinking the myself "She will NEVER fill that,
> or even come close!"
>
> The joke's on me. After 6 weeks, she's halfway there  ^_^

Are you sure those are all unique files?
Not multiple versions of the same movie? ;)

I've got a decent sized storage box as well. When building it, I already
planned ahead to allow additional disks to be easily added.
Now I need to change the layout at home, as she finds the server too noisy ;)

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[felix]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 04:12:35PM +0200, pk wrote:
> On 2012-06-18 08:16, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> 
> > I plugged two 4TB SATA drives in and the BIOS hangs trying to display the disk size.
> >Whether it is the size itself, or from using 4K blocks, I do not know.
> 
> This is a bit confusing. Do you mean to say that these are 4TB internal
> drives (3.5")? I can't find any manufacturer that manufactures this size
> (yet)... Or is it 2x 2TB harddrives in a USB3 enclosure? There are
> plenty of those it seems from Seagate, Western digital etc...

Hitachi, I think.  Fry's had two choies differing in size of cache
(64M vs 32M) and some 3TB drives too.  I could get the model numbers
when I get back to that system (not near it for a few days).

> >I bought a USB 3.0 disk enclosure and the system refused to even acknowledge its presence.
> >USB 3.0 may be advertised as backwards compatible, but not on my system.
> 
> If possible try a BIOS upgrade... if not you can always try this (no
> guarantees though):
> http://www.addonics.com/products/ad2u3pci.php

Interesting ... Cheap enough to be worth trying.  Thanks.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
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I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[pk]

On 2012-06-18 16:34, felix@crowfix.com wrote:

> Hitachi, I think.  Fry's had two choies differing in size of cache
> (64M vs 32M) and some 3TB drives too.  I could get the model numbers
> when I get back to that system (not near it for a few days).

Ah, the deskstar 7K4000 is readily available on Hitachi Global Storage
(which is owned by Western digital) home page... Funny, I first looked
at Hitachis homepage and they refered to Toshibas home page... :-s

Will you be using these (huge!) drives as boot drives or merely as
storage? If the latter and you're really desperate (haven't tried this
myself) there should be an option to turn off the automatic discovery of
drives in the BIOS and (possibly) let the kernel discover them (again
haven't tried it but I don't see why you can't "hotswap" the drives
without BIOS aid)...

Also, this is an "advanced format" drive that emulates 512-byte sectors
so there may be some fiddling before getting it right:
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-4kb-sector-disks/

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[felix]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 05:45:28PM +0200, pk wrote:

> Will you be using these (huge!) drives as boot drives or merely as
> storage? If the latter and you're really desperate (haven't tried this
> myself) there should be an option to turn off the automatic discovery of
> drives in the BIOS and (possibly) let the kernel discover them (again
> haven't tried it but I don't see why you can't "hotswap" the drives
> without BIOS aid)...

Just storage.  Currently my bulk storage is two 300GB SATA drives,
about 90% full, so I figured an upgrade was in order.  I poked around
the BIOS screens and don' remember any way to turn off discovery.  But
I'll check again, since I hadn't been looking for that specific possibility.

> Also, this is an "advanced format" drive that emulates 512-byte sectors
> so there may be some fiddling before getting it right:
> https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-4kb-sector-disks/

I replaced a failing PATA (nee IDE) drive at the same time, which is
what triggered this whole mess, and notice that fdisk now defaults the
start sector to 2048 insyead of 63, presumably for the same reason.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[Paul Hartman]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 1:16 AM,  <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
> I bought a USB 3.0 disk enclosure and the system refused to even acknowledge its presence.  USB 3.0 may be advertised as backwards compatible, but not on my system.

Is the drive powered by USB, or an external power supply? USB3
supplies more power than USB2 was capable of, so if a USB3 device does
not have an external power supply it probably won't be backwards
compatible.

Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations

[felix]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 10:43:41AM -0500, Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 1:16 AM,  <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
> > I bought a USB 3.0 disk enclosure and the system refused to even acknowledge its presence. ?USB 3.0 may be advertised as backwards compatible, but not on my system.
> 
> Is the drive powered by USB, or an external power supply? USB3
> supplies more power than USB2 was capable of, so if a USB3 device does
> not have an external power supply it probably won't be backwards
> compatible.

Good question -- if it had a power supply, I would have used it, but I
don't remember now if it did.  Doubt I would have given it a second
thought if it had no external power supply.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o