Maximum logical volume size for FCA2214

[BR782268]

We have a Proliant DL380 G3 system with a fiberchannel hostadapter, a FCA2214 (which, I think, is also known as QLA2340L). Up to last week this worked satisfactory. Due to the increasing need for more storage space, the logical disk on the SAN has slowly grown, which has never been a problem. Last week we passed the 2 TB size of the logical volume. Now it does not work anymore. This is not caused by the driver of the Operating System, for already before booting the OS, we have a problem:
If, during the powerup self test, we press Ctrl/Q to enter the BIOS utilities, and we try to perform a data test on the disk, then too few blocks are tested. It looks as if blocks are counted with only 32 bits. It looks as if bit 33 is not used, although the specifications say that it is a 64bit adapter.

Nowhere in the specifications the maximum size of a logical volume is mentioned. Our question is whether this adapter supports disks greater than 2 TB. 2 TB does not seem very big these days, as with already nine 250 GB disks in a SAN one can create such a volume.

NB. The firmware version of the is 1.33.

[Uwe Zessin]

'64-bits' means the width of the PCI backplane. I am not aware of any device that can address more than 2 TByte through Fibre Channel, but I am willing to listen.

[kris rombauts]

If this is Windows and uses NTFS then you hit the filesystem limit of the volumesize, no ?

http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm

[BR782268]

No, as I said already, we hit it already in the Fast!UTIL BIOS utilities, before we load the OS.

[BR788674]

I am using an EVA3000 (HSV100 controllers) and the maximum volume it will allow me to create is 2TB (even though there is over 3TB of space in there). Not sure about HSG controllers though?

[BR782268]

I am aware of that. But that is the maximum size that can be offered to a server. My question related to the maximum size that can be accepted by a server.
We have had for a short time an EonStor disk controller, that was able to create LUNs greater than 2 TB. We could not use these LUNs via the FCA2214. The questions is whether this is due to a limitation in the FCA2214, or that there is a problem in the combination of EonStor and FCA2214.

[Uwe Zessin]

(HSG controllers with the latest firmware have a unit limit of 1 TeraByte)

[CA820785]

EVA controllers only support a 2 TB max. volume size. Also NTFS can only suport 2 TB. FCA2214 can only see 2 TB since that is the max. an EVA can present.

[BR782268]

YEs I know that an EVA can not offer more. But other storage systems can. Will the FCA2214 be able to use these greater LUNs?