Maximum size for a filesystem

[Eric Tourigny]

I've been having troubles determining the maximum size of a filesystem. Is it simply the max PEs X Max PE Size? I have a customer who has a requirement for a 2.5TB filesystem. Any other issues you guys can think of.

[Ian Dennison_1]

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x0db46af52b04d5118fef0090279cd0f9,00.html

Answer by Patrice - 2nd or 3rd entry down the page.

If they want large files, you may need to specify -o largefiles on the newfs command.

If there is no requirement for a 2.5TB File, can't you split the files up into different Lvols?

Share and Enjoy! Ian Dennison

[Christopher McCray_1]

Here is an issue you can ponder in this post:

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x77b13a7b3682d611abdb0090277a778c,00.html


I would try, if possible to lower their requirement.

Chris

[Ceesjan van Hattum]

OS-version / Max file size / Max File system
10.1 / 2Gb / 4 Gb
10.10/ 2Gb / 128 Gb
10.20/ 128Gb / 128 Gb
11.00/ 128Gb / 128 Gb
11i* / 128Gb / 128 Gb

Info found in whitepaper:
http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/5971-2383/5971-2383.html

Regards,
Ceesjan

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

FOr 10.20, the maximum supported size is 128Gb. However, there was nothing in the code to prevent going larger--at your own risk. Unless you are experimenting on dummy data, I would not exceed that value.

For 11.0 and 11i, the maximum value is 1Tb for standard JFS (HFS is still 128Gb) and 2Tb file/filesystem for 11i but with JFS 3.3 used to create a version 4 VxVM filesystem. Recent patches prevent going over these limits. If you need files inside the filesystem that are larger than 2Gb, you must specify largefiles when using newfs, or by using fsadm to modify an existing filesystem, *and* add the largefiles option for fstab.

[Ceesjan van Hattum]

I've now understood that 1Tb only applies on v11 64 bits, not 32. Is that correct?

[Sandip Ghosh]

You can have a look at the following link.

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xcad294f22a31d6118fff0090279cd0f9,00.html

Sandip

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi:

Let me give you one other option - OmniStorage.

http://www.openview.hp.com/products/omnistorage/briefs/oms_312_pb.pdf

This is a hierarchical file system in which the most recently used data is kept on magnetic disk and less recently used data is kept on optical disk and you can even add a third layer which might be DLT/LTO libraries.

This appears to the OS as one HUGE filesystem. Some files are accessed quickly others have to be migrated from optical disk or tape and may be accessed more slowly.

I've used this to store very large amounts of CAD data and it worked very well.

[Bill Hassell]

No, the 'bitness' of the opsystem does not affect the filesystem limits. Even a 32bit program can talk to a 500Gb file--as long as the largefiles option is used to compile the code, or the code is changed to use the 64bit calls such as lseek64, etc. Going over the 2Gb size limit definitely requires changing code in your 32bit programs. A 64bit program defaults to largefile access methods.

[Michael Lampi]

Bill Hassell's answers pretty well spell it out for native file systems under HP-UX.

Otherwise, you can also consider various NFS file servers, which can provide file systems in the 10's or 100's of TB. These are typically limited only by the amount of disk-like storage, e.g., hard drives, RAID, SAN boxes, etc., made available to them.