*BSD News Article 94314


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Message-ID: <199704240303.XAA01720@phoebe.accinet.net>
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 23:07:40 -0400
From: macwhiz@phoebe.accinet.net (Rob Levandowski)
To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch)
Subject: Re: Need help connecting EMC Symmetrix array
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(A copy of this message has also been posted to the following newsgroups:
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc)

> > Also, the logical geometry reported by the Symmetrix for each drive is
> > 18,410 cylinders, 15 heads, 64 512-byte blocks.  FreeBSD doesn't seem to
> > like this idea.  How can I make FreeBSD happy with the geometry?
> 
> Explain ``doesn't seem to like''.  I have no idea why it should not be
> happy with it.  MO drives typically also have some 18000 cylinders,
> but with only one head there.  I've got such a drive working fine.

If I try to use "sysinstall" to perform the format through the character-
based user interface, it complains that the geometry is invalid.

In the intervening days, I have found out that the actual geometry is 18410
cylinders, 27 heads, 64 512-byte blocks.  (Well, that's the actual
-virtual- geometry, since the cache controller in the Symmetrix shields the
actual disks from my view.)  I haven't yet had a chance to try these
settings.  

> Geometry figures are fairly pointless anyway.  If you're clever, you
> don't need them at all. :)  (At least, on non-boot mediums, otherwise
> your BIOS cares for them due to the stupid 1024 cylinder limit.)

I'm not so clever... :)  How can I get around these figures?  These disks
will be used for news spool space; I'm planning to mount them as one volume
via ccd.  They're not to be bootable.

EMC is solving the multiple-LUN issue by reprogramming the unit to use
multiple SCSI IDs, rather than multiple LUNs.  Until I need more than
8.5*15Gb of news spool, it shouldn't be a problem. :)

-- 
Robert Levandowski
macwhiz@phoebe.accinet.net