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From: Yousuf Khan on 30 Mar 2010 11:39 Arno wrote: > Maybe Windows thinks that you cannot possibly want to span on > removable devices? It has this habit of thinking it knows > what you do and do not want but at the same time is far too > stupid to pull it off. Yeah, it looks like the case here. The technote says Microsoft doesn't support this on USB or Firewire drives. > Incidentially the 800GB seems to be a problem with the enclosure, > there is no limit (that I know of) at 39.5 bit adress length. > Maybe give this pice of trash back? Is it possible that there is a BIOS limitation, beyond 2TB? The motherboard I'm using is a rather plain desktop mobo, it may not be expecting such huge devices to join in? > USB storage supports both SCSI 32 and SCSI 64 bit sector numbers. Does the Windows USB mass storage driver treat them as SCSI devices? Oh, BTW, when I tried spanning them through Windows' spanning wizard (during initial setup prior to receiving the error message), it accepted the combined size as 2794 GB, however it would only allow a filesystem size of half of that to be created, 1397 GB! That's also the exact size of each individual drive. So it looks like it wasn't going to accept being spanned over two disks no matter what. I also tried using Linux's LVM to do this, and it created similarly sloppy results. I don't think it's got anything to do with any limitations that the enclosure has, as the problems seem to be universal throughout Windows and Linux. Yousuf Khan
From: Rod Speed on 30 Mar 2010 14:35 Yousuf Khan wrote > JW wrote >> Just guessing here, but do USB devices support spanning natively? >> See >> http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistahardware/thread/534f4fa0-7a61-4a23-952f-e034e1137e03/ > Well according to that, it looks like (at least as of Windows 2000) > dynamic disks weren't supported on USB or Firewire disks. It wouldnt be surprising if it isnt supported in any version of win, essentially because thats very risky with removable drives.
From: Rod Speed on 30 Mar 2010 14:38 Yousuf Khan wrote: > Arno wrote: >> Maybe Windows thinks that you cannot possibly want to span on >> removable devices? It has this habit of thinking it knows >> what you do and do not want but at the same time is far too >> stupid to pull it off. > > Yeah, it looks like the case here. The technote says Microsoft doesn't > support this on USB or Firewire drives. > >> Incidentially the 800GB seems to be a problem with the enclosure, >> there is no limit (that I know of) at 39.5 bit adress length. >> Maybe give this pice of trash back? > > Is it possible that there is a BIOS limitation, beyond 2TB? The > motherboard I'm using is a rather plain desktop mobo, it may not be > expecting such huge devices to join in? > >> USB storage supports both SCSI 32 and SCSI 64 bit sector numbers. > > Does the Windows USB mass storage driver treat them as SCSI devices? > > Oh, BTW, when I tried spanning them through Windows' spanning wizard > (during initial setup prior to receiving the error message), it > accepted the combined size as 2794 GB, however it would only allow a > filesystem size of half of that to be created, 1397 GB! That's also > the exact size of each individual drive. So it looks like it wasn't > going to accept being spanned over two disks no matter what. > > I also tried using Linux's LVM to do this, and it created similarly > sloppy results. I don't think it's got anything to do with any > limitations that the enclosure has, as the problems seem to be > universal throughout Windows and Linux. Likely because they all decide that its much too risky to allow with removable drives. Corse in your case both drives are in the same box, but its clear why they are being so conservative when the result when one of the drives is removed is so catestrophic.
From: Yousuf Khan on 30 Mar 2010 15:58 Rod Speed wrote: > Yousuf Khan wrote >> JW wrote > >>> Just guessing here, but do USB devices support spanning natively? >>> See >>> http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistahardware/thread/534f4fa0-7a61-4a23-952f-e034e1137e03/ > >> Well according to that, it looks like (at least as of Windows 2000) >> dynamic disks weren't supported on USB or Firewire disks. > > It wouldnt be surprising if it isnt supported in any version of win, > essentially because thats very risky with removable drives. Now the question is what would let me span these two drives together? Yousuf Khan
From: Arno on 30 Mar 2010 17:21
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Yousuf Khan <bbbl67(a)spammenot.yahoo.com> wrote: > Arno wrote: >> Maybe Windows thinks that you cannot possibly want to span on >> removable devices? It has this habit of thinking it knows >> what you do and do not want but at the same time is far too >> stupid to pull it off. > Yeah, it looks like the case here. The technote says Microsoft doesn't > support this on USB or Firewire drives. Well, it does make some sense. Personally, I think the idea of "removable" devices is fundamentally flawed, and mounting and umounting as in Linux/unix is the far better approach. Bit apparently MS customers just yank out devices if it is mechanically possible. That could be a deisaster if the devices are RAIDed/ >> Incidentially the 800GB seems to be a problem with the enclosure, >> there is no limit (that I know of) at 39.5 bit adress length. >> Maybe give this pice of trash back? > Is it possible that there is a BIOS limitation, beyond 2TB? The > motherboard I'm using is a rather plain desktop mobo, it may not be > expecting such huge devices to join in? USB does not go over the BIOS, at least not in Linux. 2TB is 41 bit. No limit on byte level I can see. Number of sectors would be 32. Ah, I think I see the problem. USB is using the storage SCSI command set. It has either 32 bit or 64 bit for the sector number. If the enclosure is resonably current, it should support 64 bit sector numbers. Linux need compiled in kernel support for large block devices to be able to handle block devices > 2TB. This support has been there for some years, but may be missing from your kernel. The config option is CONFIG_LBDAF and found under "enable block layer" in 2.6.32. I have no idea whether XP supports 64 bit sector numbers, but apparently not. >> USB storage supports both SCSI 32 and SCSI 64 bit sector numbers. > Does the Windows USB mass storage driver treat them as SCSI devices? Yes., but may be missing support for 64 bit sector numbers. > Oh, BTW, when I tried spanning them through Windows' spanning wizard > (during initial setup prior to receiving the error message), it accepted > the combined size as 2794 GB, however it would only allow a filesystem > size of half of that to be created, 1397 GB! That's also the exact size > of each individual drive. So it looks like it wasn't going to accept > being spanned over two disks no matter what. > I also tried using Linux's LVM to do this, and it created similarly > sloppy results. I don't think it's got anything to do with any > limitations that the enclosure has, as the problems seem to be universal > throughout Windows and Linux. See above. I have had the large block device support enabled for ages in my own kernels, no negative effect so far. Arno -- Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: arno(a)wagner.name GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F ---- Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans |