CuBox Development Platform

Hi,

i have a question regarding eSata drives. Is it possible to attach a harddrive > 2 TB to
the cubox using the eSATA interface?

Has anyone tried this?

Should be no problem. You need to use a partitioner like gdisk that can create gpt-compatible partitions.
Gdisk is part of the gptfdisk package.

BTW, the kernel also has to be configured to support gpt partitions.

thanks for the fast response.
I'll try it as soon as my cubox arrives.

Could anyone confirm that it works ? With witch distribution ?

I've tried with an external 3TB USB disk formatted in ext4 with a GPT partition, it works on my laptop but not with cubox.

In cubox, it seems (not really tested) to work after that I make the partition, but when I reboot, it doesn't recognize the partition so I can't mount it even I say that it is an ext4 partition.

32bit architectures are limited to 16TB max volume size; unless you use > 4KB page size.



Can you please provide more details?

_________________
SolidRun Engineering
user rabeeh in #cubox on Freenode IRC
Please visit and update the Wiki

In brief, it seems to work just after I (re)make the partition.

I think I have done that :

# parted /dev/sda

mklabel gpt
mkpart primary 0 3TB

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

#mount /dev/sda1 /media/tmp
#df
... show a 2.7TB partition
I create a file on, it seems to work correctly.

I reboot, partition is not recognized. I remake the partition (without format), it works.

It is what I remember, maybe it is not exactly what I have did.

You say that I have to use a "> 4KB page size" and it works ? Without special disk ?
How I do it ?

No I'm not saying that. I'm just answering a generic question what about the maximum volume size.
So on ARM it would be 16TB (if using 4KB pages). If you want to use bigger volume then you would need something like 64KB pages (which is not available, software wise, on CuBox).

_________________
SolidRun Engineering
user rabeeh in #cubox on Freenode IRC
Please visit and update the Wiki

Why does the maximum volume size depend on the page size ?

HI ,

I have the same issue , the sata external drive (3TB) seems OK but after reboot , I can not acces it.

I have formatted (gpt label , and so on) the drive on my desktop and copy some files => ok .
When I tried to to mount on cubox (geexbox) , I always have an error , in fact , regarless of which filesystem I use .
ext4 failed as well as ext3.
I was wondering if someone succed in mounting large hard drive (> 2TB).

Regards.

Beside partitioning your 3TB drive with GPT, you need to enable EFI in your linux kernel.

Yes, we can use hard drive larger than 2TB. This is a a screenshot of my two CuBoxes
doing healing in glusterfs. Notice the bottom of the right screen, brick2 is a 3TB drive,
a Western Digital Green 3TB.
G+:
http://bit.ly/QNQX1u