iSCSI : Disk Unknow and Unreadable

[pleige]

Hi,

I am trying to use my Thecus N5200PRO as an iSCSI target.
I assume I know how to do it but it does not works.

I have created a RAID 5 volume using 5% of the space and a iSCSI Target with 95%. As I will use it on a dedicated ethernet cable and a dedicated network card on a server I havent used any authentication (Authentication: None).

On my Windpws 2003 server I have installed the latest Microsoft iSCSI initiator. Through the initiator I can see the "Target Portal" and the "Target". I am able to coonected to the target.

On my Windpws 2003 server, in Disk Managment, I see the target as a disk, but the disk is flagged "Unknow" and "Unreadable". I can not format it.

The disk size should be 2646.7 GB is it too much ?

I have already done that on another Thecus and it works very well, but this firmware was V2.00.01 and the iSCSI disk size is 800 Gb

Thanks for your help ...

fred.

[pleige]

During writing my first post, I thought to the max disk size had a 2 Tb limit.
This is the problem !

I made some tests and I am finally able to see (and format) a disk in Windows 2003 server with a size of 1950 Mb, but I can not if the size is (I assume) more than 2000 Mo, like 2089,8 Mo in my case.

Is it a Thecus bug ? an iSCSI limitation ? a Windows 2003 Server problem ?

Thanks.

[omega]

Hi Fred,

can it be that the Windows PC reports decimal MB and not binary MB (also called MiB)?

This is the calculation:

2089.8 MB = 2089800000 bytes / 1024 / 1024 = 1992.99 MiB

Andreas

[pleige]

Hi,
I don't know if the size displayed by the disk manager reflects the theorical way or the disk vendor way of computing disk size, but now my question is :
- There is a limit in the size of an iSCSI disk ? I think yes, but I don't know why. 2Tb is not so big nowadays, specialy with servers and NAS.

Thank you.

fred

[omega]

Fred,

check out this page forum.open-e.com/showthread.php?t=381

I think the answer applies to you too...

In short: the 2 TB limit is a Microsoft implementation limit which is not available on Linux systems and not inherent to the ISCSI protocol.

Andreas

[pleige]

I haven't read the link yet, but this seems to be a Microsoft bug/feature/way to make more money.

I will use iSCSI disks smaller then 2000 Mb (Microsoft way of computing).

Thank you for your very valuable answer !

fred