Yes, I can tell you more. The hardware as you guessed is not actually
new, it is recycled equipment that is new to me and newly installed with
Debian.
The machine is a Cisco MCS server, possibly a Cisco MCS7800 series. (I'm
not where the server is physically now to check.) (Cisco MCS7800
servers apparently went end of support on 2019-12-31.)
This is a 2U server which is a re-badged IBM machine, the firmware
screens at startup are all IBM branded.
The disks are 2 bays in the front of the server rackmount case. No
external controller.
By the way, I don't recommend these servers, it has an uncommon display
chipset (MGA G200EV) which the kernel doesn't handle correctly at boot.
Hence also the installer doesn't display. I installed this machine by
booting off a Debian 12 live image, then using parted to partition the
disk and debootstrap to install.
I also have another machine (fj, installed a while ago) which I believe
is identical hardware, and which is successfully using a 4TB drive:
Model Family: Western Digital Red
Device Model: WDC WD40EFRX-68N32N0
# dmesg|grep sda
[ 2.484956] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 7814037168 512-byte logical blocks:
(4.00 TB/3.64 TiB)
[ 2.484961] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 4096-byte physical blocks
[ 2.484974] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 2.484977] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 2.484995] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: disabled, read cache:
enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 2.485050] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Preferred minimum I/O size 4096 bytes
[ 2.521157] sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4
[ 2.521853] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
c.f. the problematic 8G one on fj2:
Model Family: Seagate BarraCuda 3.5 (SMR)
Device Model: ST8000DM004-2U9188
# dmesg|grep sdb
[ 12.977869] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] 4294967294 512-byte logical blocks:
(2.20 TB/2.00 TiB)
[ 13.045178] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 13.045186] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 73 00 00 08
[ 13.050816] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache:
enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 13.145348] sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3
[ 13.146139] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
The differences between these two systems are different drives of
course, and the problematic disk is the only disk and therefore the boot
disk, whereas the working one is not the boot disk (there is a 1T disk
sdb which is the boot disk, and I never got the system booting off the
4T disks, there was previously a pair in that machine.)
Hardware info:
oot@fj2:/home/installer# lscpu|head
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Address sizes: 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 4
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-3
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
BIOS Vendor ID: Intel(R) Corporation
Model name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU
X3430 @ 2.40GHz
BIOS Model name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU
X3430 @ 2.40GHz CPU @ 2.4GHz
root@fj2:/home/installer# lspci|grep storage
01:00.0 SCSI storage controller: Broadcom / LSI SAS1064ET PCI-Express
Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 08)
Selected lshw info:
fj2
description: Rack Mount Chassis
product: System x3250 M3 -[4251PAB]- (XxXxXxX)
vendor: IBM
version: 05
serial: KQ7F85W
width: 64 bits
capabilities: smbios-2.5 dmi-2.5 smp vsyscall32
configuration: boot=normal chassis=rackmount family=System X
sku=XxXxXxX uuid=48cd79b1-0f24-ef3c-ae22-0901f4b70880
*-core
description: Motherboard
product: 00D9060
vendor: IBM
physical id: 0
version: SIT
serial: 26F0EV
slot: Rear Bottom
...
*-firmware
description: BIOS
vendor: IBM Corp.
physical id: 13
version: -[GYE148AUS-1.11]-
date: 02/09/2011
size: 1MiB
capacity: 4MiB
capabilities: pci pnp upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect edd
int13floppynec int13floppytoshiba int13floppy360 int13floppy1200
int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial
int17printer int10video acpi usb ls120boot zipboot biosbootspecification
netboot
...
*-scsi
description: SCSI storage controller
product: SAS1064ET PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS
vendor: Broadcom / LSI
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
logical name: scsi7
version: 08
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: scsi pm pciexpress msi msix bus_master
cap_list rom
configuration: driver=mptsas latency=0
resources: irq:16 ioport:3000(size=256)
memory:91b10000-91b13fff memory:91b00000-91b0ffff
*-disk
description: ATA Disk
product: ST8000DM004-2U91
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@7:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sdb
version: 0001
serial: WSC2L45L
size: 2047GiB (2199GB)
capacity: 2TiB (2199GB)
capabilities: 15000rpm gpt-1.00 partitioned
partitioned:gpt
configuration: ansiversion=5
guid=da432e93-f76c-40a0-88cc-22bdf590df11 logicalsectorsize=512
sectorsize=512
I suspect it's a firmware issue. I've been through the setup screens
and didn't see anything that looked relevant. I can try to find if
Cisco could give me updated firmware for the server, but I'm not confident.
I feel like there could be something basic I'm missing given the other
server can address 4TB. Maybe someone with IBM firmware experience
knows which direction I should look.
Thanks,
Alex
On 11/03/25 21:17, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote:
On 11.03.2025 12:13, Alex King wrote:
Hi,
I've installed a large disk in a new machine and loaded Debian
(bookworm) on it, but it's showing as limited to 2TB when the disk
should be larger.
How can I get Debian to use the full 8TB on this disk?
Can you tell us more information about hardware setup?
How old is hardware of this "new machine"?
What's motherboard make and model?
Is HDD attached directly to the motherboard or using some kind of
eternal SATA\SAS controller?
It could be due to hardware\firmware limitations\incompatibility of a
SATA controller, or a fimware bug in drive itself.
--
With kindest regards, Alexander.
Debian - The universal operating system
https://www.debian.org
