1.5TB ext3 partitions - mke2fs problems at 2^31 blocks

[Alex Bligh]

I am trying to get a 9550SX to support a 1.5TB raid partition. I am unsure
whether this is a driver problem, or an ext3 problem (as am getting some
other wierdness detecting LUNs), but...

fdisk recognizes the disk OK. I make a single extended partition with a
single 1.5TB logical partition inside it. I then run

mke2fs -j /dev/sdb

It gets to writing inode tables, and wants to write 11176 block groups.
It gets to 3600 (odd) of 11176 block groups fine, then slows to a complete
crawl (2 secs per write), though strace shows it is fine.

My suspicious mind says this is 1/3 of the way through the disk, which is
2^31 blocks, i.e. where the block number goes negative in a signed
environment.

Is there a problem with ext3 supporting more than 2^31 blocks?

System:
	AMD64 2 x Opteron 275
	Ubuntu Breezy
	mke2fs 1.38
	Kernel 2.6.12 + 3w9xxx from 2.6.14 or from 3-ware
	3-ware 9550SX RAID controller, latest firmware, BIOS
	RAID-5 1.5 TB single partition disk

Alex