[TriLUG] huge filesystems

[paul]

Does anyone have experience setting up huge filesystems in Linux? It
is of course debatable whether or not having a 5tb+ filesystem is a
good idea, however I am tasked with finding the method to make it
work.

Details. Server runs RHEL4 and the option of RHEL4 x86_64. The
filesystems would be created on externally attached arrays via scsi
ultra 320 LSI cards. The card according to LSI will support whatever
the array can throw at it, and of course the array itself supports
making such a filesystem (in this case 5.3tb). When the array is
attached the  server, you can fdisk the device and see that the space
is available.

##################################

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 5594.5 GB, 5594564001792 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 170041 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 2048 = 32901120 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1      182187  1558700888   83  Linux

##################################

I am not experience in setting block sizes and what not, so that is my
current path. In other words, reasearching that piece of the puzzle.

I realize according to some googling that ext3 will not support this
size of a filesystem, however RHEL4 doesn't support XFS or JFS from
what I can find. I turned to my personal fav Debian to see if I could
work with the filesystem since I would have xfs available to me, but
fdisk had issues with sectors, and my employer wants to change distros
as a last resort.

I would be happy to pursue this on my own if I could get a little
advice as to what to look for. Googling "huge filesystem lnux" isn't
really getting me what I need thus far, so any "more relevant" search
terms or info from disk gurus would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul