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Contribs.org Forums => Koozali SME Server 10.x => Topic started by: edb on May 15, 2023, 06:16:25 PM

Title: How to partition a secondary drive larger than 2TB
Post by: edb on May 15, 2023, 06:16:25 PM

I'm try to setup a new SMEserver 10.1 for the purposes of using the backuppc contrib as a backup server.
I have a secondary /dev/sdb drive around 3.6TB in size but fdisk only allows a 2TB max size so if someone could direct me to how to overcome this it would be great. I don't see that parted is installed so not sure of the options available to accomplish making use of the entire secondary drive size.
Appreciate any input

Thanks

Title: Re: How to partition a secondary drive larger than 2TB
Post by: TerryF on May 15, 2023, 09:30:08 PM

HD size limits https://access.redhat.com/articles/rhel-limits

See spec for BIOS and boot limit oif 2tb, even then can be greater with right BIOS settings and hardware

Storage limits depend on File system used (ext2, ext3, xfs etc) can be minmimum of 16tb and greater depending on filestsem hardware, bios and setup..

What size is the OS drive?. Just 1 or do you make use of a raid setup.
How are you adding/mounting the data drive?
What BIOS setting for HDs?

Others may or will be more specific.

Title: Re: How to partition a secondary drive larger than 2TB
Post by: edb on May 15, 2023, 10:10:16 PM

Hi Terry and thanks for your reply.

I believe it is a limitation when using fdisk as it only wants to create a partition size of 2TB max.
My OS drive size is just under 300GB.
I have created hardware array of 300GB as RAID 1+0 (used for OS install), and another hardware array of 3.6TB for use for BACKUPPC only.
So fdisk -l sees all the OS partitions as well as the secondary /dev/sdb which shows all available space, but when I go to create the sdb1 partition I am limited to just 2TB in size.
Is there another tool that would be able to create the 3.6TB partition for me so that I can use all space on that sdb drive?
I thought I heard that "parted" is supposed to do what I want here with XFS file system but it is not installed on SME10.
Thanks

Title: Re: How to partition a secondary drive larger than 2TB
Post by: TerryF on May 15, 2023, 10:38:43 PM

aha, understand, was looking at the forest not the trees :-) I use parted installable from centos repos

https://systemzone.net/managing-disk-partition-with-the-parted-tool-in-centos-7/

https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/fdisk-unable-to-create-partition-greater-2tb.html

[root@fagehome ~]# parted
GNU Parted 3.1
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) help
  align-check TYPE N                        check partition N for TYPE(min|opt) alignment
  help [COMMAND]                           print general help, or help on COMMAND
  mklabel,mktable LABEL-TYPE               create a new disklabel (partition table)
  mkpart PART-TYPE [FS-TYPE] START END     make a partition
  name NUMBER NAME                         name partition NUMBER as NAME
  print [devices|free|list,all|NUMBER]     display the partition table, available devices, free space, all found partitions, or a
        particular partition
  quit                                     exit program
  rescue START END                         rescue a lost partition near START and END

  resizepart NUMBER END                    resize partition NUMBER
  rm NUMBER                                delete partition NUMBER
  select DEVICE                            choose the device to edit
  disk_set FLAG STATE                      change the FLAG on selected device
  disk_toggle [FLAG]                       toggle the state of FLAG on selected device
  set NUMBER FLAG STATE                    change the FLAG on partition NUMBER
  toggle [NUMBER [FLAG]]                   toggle the state of FLAG on partition NUMBER
  unit UNIT                                set the default unit to UNIT
  version                                  display the version number and copyright information of GNU Parted

Title: Re: How to partition a secondary drive larger than 2TB
Post by: edb on May 16, 2023, 12:48:39 AM

Excellent, thanks for your help Terry that was indeed what I needed.
Just before receiving this info though I discovered a tool already available on SME called "gdisk" which does the same things as "parted".
I learn something new every day so thank you again!

Title: Re: How to partition a secondary drive larger than 2TB
Post by: TerryF on May 16, 2023, 01:16:06 AM

what we all aspire to, new things :-)