How to partition a 3TB disk?

[Rick Thomas]

I just purchased a 3TB disk -- my first of that size.

I'm trying to partition it. I want one huge ext4 filesystem. But
fdisk (and cfdisk) keep telling me that I can't create a partition
larger than 2TB.

I've thought about creating three 1TB partitions then using LVM to
merge them into one, but that seems like over-kill.

Has anybody got a suggestion?

Thanks!

Rick

[Dan Hitt]

Hi Rick,

fdisk and cfdisk are being honest with you.

2.19T is the limit.

But you can partition it as gpt, and have many many partitions on it,
or i believe one huge one.

You can use the live gparted cd to do it.

(ubuntu will also do it for you automatically, but not wanting to
bring up things that may be
too far from what you need or want.)

Good luck!

dan

Post by Rick Thomas
I just purchased a 3TB disk -- my first of that size.
I'm trying to partition it. I want one huge ext4 filesystem. But fdisk
(and cfdisk) keep telling me that I can't create a partition larger than
2TB.
I've thought about creating three 1TB partitions then using LVM to merge
them into one, but that seems like over-kill.
Has anybody got a suggestion?
Thanks!
Rick
--

[sp113438]

On Mon, 20 May 2013 17:25:00 -0700

Post by Dan Hitt
Hi Rick,
fdisk and cfdisk are being honest with you.
2.19T is the limit.

I have a Deskstar 5400 4 TB from Hitachi (now WD?).
I ended up with having 2 partitions of 2 TB.
I could not make one 4 TB partition on that drive.

[sp113438]

On Tue, 21 May 2013 03:04:25 +0200

Post by sp113438
On Mon, 20 May 2013 17:25:00 -0700

Post by Dan Hitt
Hi Rick,
fdisk and cfdisk are being honest with you.
2.19T is the limit.

I have a Deskstar 5400 4 TB from Hitachi (now WD?).
I ended up with having 2 partitions of 2 TB.
I could not make one 4 TB partition on that drive.

I have an USB external 3TB disk.
I needed a program from manufacturer to be able to set up a 3TB
partition on it.
It was setup to have one 2 TB and one 1 TB partition in hardware.

[Rick Thomas]

Post by Dan Hitt
Hi Rick,
fdisk and cfdisk are being honest with you.
2.19T is the limit.
But you can partition it as gpt, and have many many partitions on it,
or i believe one huge one.
You can use the live gparted cd to do it.
(ubuntu will also do it for you automatically, but not wanting to
bring up things that may be
too far from what you need or want.)

btw, i realize i'm being super-vague.
somebody on the list will correct me later.
but the deal is that using the normal partitioning scheme, sometimes
called 'msdos', your
partition sizes are limited.
but if you set the disk layout to be gpt, which gparted will do for
you if you want, then
you have a huge amount of flexibility.
here's an url you can go to to get an iso image to burn a cd with and
boot from to
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
dan
It turns out that with gparted I was able to create one large 3TB
partition in a gpt-type partition table. I was able to mount it and
write a few files to it. I haven't tried anything big yet, but I'm
hopeful.
As regards the LVM solution, it occurred to me that I don't need a
partition table to declare the entire disk as a physical volume for
LVM. So I could create a volume group that is the whole single
disk, and use lvm to partition it any way I want. And when it comes
time to add another disk to the group, I have all of LVM2 at my
disposal to do so.
So after I get thru playing with gpt, I'll try the lvm solution and
report back what I find.

Well...

Using gpt via gparted seems to work fine for a 3TB partition.

And so does using lvm with the whole disk as a PV. I'm doing a
massive rsync to it as I type.

Thanks to everyone for all the help!

Rick

[David Christensen]

Post by Rick Thomas
I just purchased a 3TB disk -- my first of that size.
I'm trying to partition it. I want one huge ext4 filesystem. But fdisk
(and cfdisk) keep telling me that I can't create a partition larger than
2TB.

Install "parted" and read the man page for the "mklabel" command with
the "gpt" label-type. I believe I used that to create one large
partition on my 3 TB drive.

HTH,

David

[Tom Browder]

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 8:28 PM, David Christensen

Post by Rick Thomas
I just purchased a 3TB disk -- my first of that size.
I'm trying to partition it. I want one huge ext4 filesystem. But fdisk

...

Install "parted" and read the man page for the "mklabel" command with the

David is right "on track," but gparted may be easier. See:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/index.php

Best regards,

-Tom

[Darac Marjal]

Post by Rick Thomas
I just purchased a 3TB disk -- my first of that size.
I'm trying to partition it. I want one huge ext4 filesystem. But
fdisk (and cfdisk) keep telling me that I can't create a partition
larger than 2TB.
I've thought about creating three 1TB partitions then using LVM to
merge them into one, but that seems like over-kill.
Has anybody got a suggestion?

If this isn't to be a boot disk, then try running pvcreate directly on
the disk itself. LVM doesn't need a partition table if it's the only
thing on the disk (it will basically act as its own partition table). I
don't know, offhand what the limitations of LVM are but I'm willing to
bet they're better than a DOS-style partition table.

[Mariusz Sielicki]

Post by Darac Marjal

Post by Rick Thomas
I just purchased a 3TB disk -- my first of that size.
I'm trying to partition it. I want one huge ext4 filesystem. But
fdisk (and cfdisk) keep telling me that I can't create a partition
larger than 2TB.
I've thought about creating three 1TB partitions then using LVM to
merge them into one, but that seems like over-kill.
Has anybody got a suggestion?

If this isn't to be a boot disk, then try running pvcreate directly on
the disk itself. LVM doesn't need a partition table if it's the only
thing on the disk (it will basically act as its own partition table). I
don't know, offhand what the limitations of LVM are but I'm willing to
bet they're better than a DOS-style partition table.

Use parted instead fdisk:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/fdisk-unable-to-create-partition-greater-2tb.html