dell md3000i luns maxed at 2tb?

[blackrabbit]

I'm working on a project that seems to be getting more and more difficult as it goes. I'm new to the md3000i so I might be missing something. I'm using the Dell Modular Disk Storage Client to get into the array and create luns and what not, very easy. The problem is that when I create a disk group suing say 20 physical disks with a total capacity of 7TB it won't let me create LUNS bigger than 2TB.

One the server accessing that LUN I'm using the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator to access the san. I created 3 2TB luns on the array and made them dynamic disks on the server so I could make a huge 6TB spanned drive. It works great until I reboot the server. On reboot the disk is not mounted and I have to manually mount the disk everytime. I read some articles that stated I should make the server service dependent on the MSISCI server so the initiator stars before the server service. That didn't work. Then I read that the MS iSCSI Initiator doesn't support dynamic disks so I can't make a huge 6GB spanned volume and well I need one.

I can't get the md30001 to make luns bigger than 2TB so I can't make one giant LUN either. Does anyone know how to make the dell md3000i allow luns bigger than 2TB?

 

[baddos]

Does the MD30001 controller not support it or windows? I.E. Can you create the lun, but not able to make a partition greater than 2tb? I know a windows partition requires a different partition for volumes > 2tb, but your storage controller should be able to make a LUN that big.

 

[jpm121]

Are you running VMWare ESX? If so there is a 2TB limit.

 

[NickFerrar]

Hmm sounds like there's an artificial limit that's been set as the two main server types you'd connect (Windows and ESX) have 2TB limits (OK apart from GPT for Windows). I can't see why it would be a limitation of the MD3000i itself. I'd raise a call with Dell and ask if there's a workaround.

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

Could be a limit of the internal OS running on the dell controller ( 32 bit limitation ? ), and that would be a real f*ckup from Dell, as nowadays nearly all databases,fileservers,... go over 2 TB. As already suggested, place a call to Dell support on this.

 

[blackrabbit]

I read over some documents on the Dell site that the MD3000i is hard coded to max out luns at 2 TB. I think thats silly since nowadays luns sometimes need to be bigger than that. Oh well I guess I'm stuck at 2 TB per lun. Now I know to order hardware hba's in my servers so i canc reate dynamic disks in windows spanning more than one 2TB lun to make a larger disk and have it mount after the serve reboots, oh well live and learn. But seriously 2TB max hardcoded into the iscsi, that just seems very silly on dell's part.

 

[DS4800SAN]

in this scenario i belive only Disk controller firmware upgradation can help you. I had faced similiar problem with IBM DS4800 SAN, upgradation of controller firmware has helped me.

Thanks

 

[SANEngInCO]

I read over some documents on the Dell site that the MD3000i is hard coded to max out luns at 2 TB. I think thats silly since nowadays luns sometimes need to be bigger than that."

That's what you get when you buy inexpensive storage units like this. DAS units like this and others will be more barebones and have a lot more limitations than actual storage arrays like an HDS AMS2x000, SUN 6x40, EMC CX-x0, etc. This is why we got away from DAS and run everything from the SAN.

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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
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[kmuller192]

I see I'm a little late to this post - but since feel it important to update. Dell just released new firmware (12/19/08) for the MD3000 and 3000i that will allow you more than 2TB. it also adds support for raid 6. I'm currently running a 6.5tb partition with no issues.