How do I partition and mount a 3TB Hard Disk using the terminal?

Question

I have a 3TB Hard disk which I wish to mount as a single partition under Ubuntu 11.10 server Because it is over 2TB I know there are some issues with this. I'm unsure of what I need to do to make this happen.

I need to do this via the terminal because I am using the server edition

Answer 1

Use parted

it might be a bit complicated, so read up on the internet (official manual) or man parted. Some commands to get started:

parted /dev/sdX     # substitute with your drive (and you prolly need sudo)
> mklabel gpt       # makes a new gpt partition table, afaik needed for >2TB
> mkpart pri 1 -1   # makes a new primary partition from start to end,
                    # note there are only primary partitions on gpt

afterwards format your partition, not exactly sure about the command in ubuntu, try

mkfs --type ext4 /dev/sdXY

for an ext4 partition.

That should suffice to make you able mount the partition.

Answer 2

I did it using these 2 apps:

• gdisk (not fdisk) to create the initial partition, followed by
• the mkfs.ext4 command from the e2fsprogs package to format it

Answer 3

Use Gparted to partition & make a ext4 partition and you will be fine.