On 2010/11/18 at 3:16, wod...@gmail.com (Andy Wodfer) wrote:

Total storage in version 1 of this server will
probably be 8-12 TB.
...
The processor will be a 64bit capable Intel processor and I plan on using a
Highpoint Rocketraid or 3ware Raid controller.
...
1. Which FreeBSD version should I install?
...
2. I know that the 3ware Raid controller supports larger drives than 2TB (or
was it 1TB?)... How can I create this huge partition/slice? I
don't think the installer (atleast on the standard FreeBSD version) supports
these large drives?

Just chiming in with my own experience... I built a "cheap" media storage server so I don't have to keep digging DVDs out of the pile and can just stream them
from the server.  4x1.5TB Raid 5 disks.

I haven't updated it to FreeBSD 8.2 yet, so:
[media: ~]> uname -a
FreeBSD media 8.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE #0: Sat Nov 21 15:48:17 UTC 2009 r...@almeida.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC i386 (its a Pentium 4... cheap but effective hardware... the processor is hardly
ever significantly used.  Its just a file server).

To ease booting problems, I used 3ware's drivers to create a booting volume out of the bigger unit. FYI: I used Seagate hard drives (I hear they are
coming out with a 3TB internal drive any day now):
_______________________________________________________
# tw_cli /c0 show all
/c0 Driver Version = 3.70.05.001
/c0 Model = 9550SXU-4LP
/c0 Available Memory = 112MB
/c0 Firmware Version = FE9X 3.08.00.029
/c0 Bios Version = BE9X 3.10.00.003
/c0 Boot Loader Version = BL9X 3.02.00.001
/c0 Serial Number = L320912A9410199
/c0 PCB Version = Rev 032
/c0 PCHIP Version = 1.60
/c0 ACHIP Version = 1.90
/c0 Number of Ports = 4
/c0 Number of Drives = 4
/c0 Number of Units = 1
/c0 Total Optimal Units = 1
/c0 Not Optimal Units = 0
/c0 JBOD Export Policy = off
/c0 Disk Spinup Policy = 1
/c0 Spinup Stagger Time Policy (sec) = 1
/c0 Auto-Carving Policy = off
/c0 Auto-Carving Size = 2048 GB
/c0 Auto-Rebuild Policy = on
/c0 Rebuild Rate = 1
/c0 Verify Rate = 1
/c0 Controller Bus Type = PCIX
/c0 Controller Bus Width = 64 bits
/c0 Controller Bus Speed = 66 Mhz

Unit UnitType Status %RCmpl %V/I/M Stripe Size(GB) Cache AVrfy
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
u0 RAID-5 OK - - 64K 4190.92 ON OFF

Port   Status           Unit   Size        Blocks        Serial
---------------------------------------------------------------
p0     OK               u0     1.36 TB     2930277168    9VS2Y6AV
p1     OK               u0     1.36 TB     2930277168    9VS2X5A2
p2     OK               u0     1.36 TB     2930277168    9VS2VDDA
p3     OK               u0     1.36 TB     2930277168    9VS2X5P6
_______________________________________________________



Because I was using an older motherboard that doesn't have EFI, I needed a boot partition that was less than 2.2TB, so I used 3ware's bios utility
to make 2 volumes:

_______________________________________________________
# tw_cli /c0/u0 show

Unit     UnitType  Status         %RCmpl  %V/I/M  Port  Stripe  Size(GB)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
u0       RAID-5    OK             -       -       -     64K     4190.92
u0-0     DISK      OK             -       -       p3    -       1396.97
u0-1     DISK      OK             -       -       p2    -       1396.97
u0-2     DISK      OK             -       -       p1    -       1396.97
u0-3     DISK      OK             -       -       p0    -       1396.97
u0/v0    Volume    -              -       -       -     -       20
u0/v1    Volume    -              -       -       -     -       4170.92
_______________________________________________________

To partition the larger volume I used gpart:
_______________________________________________________
# gpart show
=>      63  41942943  da0  MBR  (20G)
        63  41929587    1  freebsd  [active]  (20G)
  41929650     13356       - free -  (6.5M)

=>       0  41929587  da0s1  BSD  (20G)
         0    524288      1  freebsd-ufs  (256M)
    524288   8388608      2  freebsd-swap  (4.0G)
   8912896   8388608      4  freebsd-ufs  (4.0G)
  17301504   8388608      5  freebsd-ufs  (4.0G)
  25690112  16239475      6  freebsd-ufs  (7.7G)

=>        34  8747055038  da1  GPT  (4.1T)
          34  8747055038    1  freebsd-ufs  (4.1T)
_______________________________________________________

Which turned out thusly:
_______________________________________________________
# df -h
Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/da0s1a    248M    163M     64M    72%    /
devfs          1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /dev
/dev/da1p1     3.9T    3.5T    155G    96%    /media
/dev/da0s1e    3.9G     18K    3.6G     0%    /tmp
/dev/da0s1f    7.5G    3.4G    3.5G    50%    /usr
/dev/da0s1d    3.9G    234M    3.3G     6%    /var
_______________________________________________________



I just used UFS formatted slices as I was planning to share quite
a few of them using NFS.  It has worked quite well and I'm quite
happy with my setup.  I really like the 3ware raid cards.  They
have worked quite well for me both on this project and on a previous
server project.

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