Re: [SCSI] SCSI block devices larger then 2TB

From: David Lang
Date: Mon Dec 19 2005 - 17:34:06 EST


On Mon, 12 Dec 2005, David Lang wrote:

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Christoph Hellwig wrote:

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 11:21:09AM +0100, Michal Feix wrote:
Greetings!

Current aic79xxx driver doesn't see SCSI devices larger, then 2TB. It
fails with READ CAPACITY(16) command. As far as I can understand, we
already have LBD support in kernel for some time now. So it's only
the

drivers, that need to be fixed? LSI driver is the only one I found
working with devices over 2TB; I couldn't test any other driver, as I
don't have the hardware. Is it really so bad, that only LSI chipset
and
maybe few others are capable of seeng such devices?

I definitly works fine with Qlogic parallel scsi and fibrechannel and
emulex
fibre channel controllers aswell as lsi/engenio megaraid controllers.

It looks like aci79xx is just broken in that repsect. Unfortunately
the
driver doesn't have a proper maintainer, we scsi developers put in
fixes
and cleanups but we don't have the full documentation to fix such
complicated
issue. If you have a support contract with Adaptec complain to them.

I was at a BOF at LISA last week on this subject, the guy running it
said
that the common ultra320 chip used for parallel scsi doesn't implment
READ
CAPACITY(16), but instead implemnets a propriatary READ CAPACITY(12)
which
allows you to break the 2TB limit.

I asked him to send the patch that he's been maintaining seperatly (and
providing to his customers, he's a storage hardware vendor) to the list
to
get integrated.

I'll see if I have any notes with his address on them, or you could
check
the BOF schedule online to see if it got listed there.

here is the BOF listing, hopefully someone will recongnise the names and be able to contact them directly

Large Filesystems: Breaking 2TB Limitation
Organizer: Sergey Sviridov, AC&NC
Wednesday, December 7, 9:00 p.m.10:00 p.m., Hampton

How to address more than 2TB Storage Volume as a single LUN. Windows and Linux experience. Doug Hughes will talk about Solaris and Veritas Volume Manager.

David Lang
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