Explanation of RHEL message "very big device. try to use READ CAPACITY(16)."

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • Excerpt from /var/log/messages:

    Jul 13 15:07:49 localhost kernel:   Vendor: 3PARdata  Model: VV                Rev: 0000
Jul 13 15:07:49 localhost kernel:   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 05
Jul 13 15:07:49 localhost kernel: sda : very big device. try to use READ CAPACITY(16).
Jul 13 15:07:49 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: 4718592000 512-byte hdwr sectors (2415919 MB)

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4, 5, 6, 7
  • Last addressable disk sector number is greater than 0xFFFFFFFF
    • Greater than 2.19TB attached storage device (512n or 512e device format, 512b sector size), or
    • Greater than 17.59TB attached storage device (4Kn device format, 4096b sector size)

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