Formatting an drive for use in Linux
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If you have a new drive you want to add to your system, it's not going to work right out of the box. It needs to be correctly formatted a partition table and a linux-friendly filesystem.
On a CentOS 6 workstation: Create a new disk label:
[bwong1@band Desktop]$ sudo parted /dev/sdb mklabel gpt Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.
- Note: if the drive was previously used and you're okay with wiping it, you'll see the following:*
[bwong1@band ~]$ sudo parted /dev/sdb mklabel gpt Warning: The existing disk label on /dev/sdb will be destroyed and all data on this disk will be lost. Do you want to continue? Yes/No? yes Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.
Create a single partition using optimal settings that utilizes all free space
[bwong1@band Desktop]$ sudo parted -a optimal /dev/sdb mkpart primary 0% 100% Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.
Make sure config is right so far by printing it:
[bwong1@band Desktop]$ sudo parted -a optimal /dev/sdb mkpart primary 0% 100% [bwong1@band Desktop]$ sudo parted /dev/sdb print Model: ST8000DM 0004-1ZC11G (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 8002GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 8002GB 8002GB primary
Write a filesystem to the newly created disk partition:
[bwong1@band Desktop]$ sudo mkfs -t xfs /dev/sdb1 meta-data=/dev/sdb1 isize=256 agcount=8, agsize=268435455 blks = sectsz=512 attr=2, projid32bit=0 data = bsize=4096 blocks=1953506304, imaxpct=5 = sunit=0 swidth=0 blks naming =version 2 bsize=4096 ascii-ci=0 log =internal log bsize=4096 blocks=521728, version=2 = sectsz=512 sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=1 realtime =none extsz=4096 blocks=0, rtextents=0
If this disk has a previous fileystem on disk, use mkfs -f to force overwrite over the previous filesystem.
Mount the new filesystem identified by diskid partition to a place of your choice. I mount it to /mnt/usb because I'm using a usb attached HDD.
[bwong1@band Desktop]$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb [bwong1@band Desktop]$ df -hl /mnt/usb/ Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sdb1 7.3T 33M 7.3T 1% /mnt/usb