linux max disk size

Question

I have a linux server with sda to host the OS (Ubuntu 7.04, ext3 filesystem) and sdb,sdc,sdd,sde 1TB each to be on a raid 1 for saving data. I need to get rid of the raid and I wanna swap it for a 4TB disk. How can I determine which is the max disk space that is supported?

Solution

Linux is not really the limiting factor when it comes to max disk size, as long as you stick to ext3,4 or xfs. If you are running a recent main board with SATA you are good to go, since SATA has 48bit LBA to address the disk.

See http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/246170-32-hard-drive-size-limit

Ext3 has some limits on max disk size, due to the chosen block size. With a block size of 4KiB the maximum file size is 2TiB and the max disk size 16TiB.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3

Another very insightful read is here: What is the max partition supported in linux?

Comments

[Grant]

Is there a particular reason for using a 7 year old version of Ubuntu? 7.04 hasn't had security updates for years now.

[apo]

unfortunately yes.

[peterh]

Not true, block device sizes have a maximum in linux, although it is quite large.

[itsafire]

True. But my response applies to the given context.

[peterh]

True. (--- expansion ---)