On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 02:13:48PM -0500, Michael S. Peek wrote: > Hello fellow Debian aficionados, > > I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how to partition and format > a large disk. > > I have a 3ware card and an array defined thusly: > ># tw_cli /c4/u0 show > > > >Unit UnitType Status %Cmpl Port Stripe Size(GB) Blocks > >----------------------------------------------------------------------- > >u0 RAID-5 OK - - 64K 2086.09 > >4374845440 > When I went to try to partition the disk with fdisk, it said: > ># fdisk /dev/sdb > >Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or > >OSF disklabel > >Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only, > >until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous > >content won't be recoverable. > > > >You must set cylinders. > >You can do this from the extra functions menu. > >Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by > >w(rite) > Hmm.... Cylinders. > > I've never had to calculate geometry before, so I gave it a try.
fdisk does not handle well disk bigger than 2TB. If you use a dos partition table, this limit will be hard and you will have to carve several disks out of your array (the 3ware tools do that at creation time). If you want to use another partition table, you can follow the recipe there: https://www.penguin.org.il/support/linux/EtherDrive-2.6-HOWTO-5.html It is for a coraid array but the math is the same. I would advise for and lvm though. It is way eaiser on those large volumes. jacques
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