This is a simple guide, part of a series I'll call 'How-To Guide Without Ads'. In it, I'm going to document how I partition, format, and mount a large disk (2TB+) in Linux with
parted
.
Note that newer
fdisk
versions may work better with giant drives... but since I'm now used to
parted
I'm sticking with it for the foreseeable future.
List all available drives
$ sudo parted -l
...
Error: /dev/sda: unrecognised disk label
Model: ATA Samsung SSD 870 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 8002GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown
Disk Flags:
Good, I had plugged in that SSD just now, and it's brand new, so it doesn't have a partition table, label, or anything. It's the one I want to operate on. It's located at
/dev/sda
. I could also find that info with
lsblk
.
Partition your drive with
parted
$ sudo parted /dev/sda
(parted) mklabel gpt # to create a partition table
(parted) print # to verify parition info
(parted) mkpart primary 0% 100% # create primary partition filling entire disk
(parted) quit
Verify you see the partition with
fdisk
$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 7.3 TiB, 8001563222016 bytes, 15628053168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 870
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 44C96693-5B5E-4ABB-AEEC-A60C613E7EC6
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 15628052479 15628050432 7.3T Linux filesystem
Now we know the partition ID,
/dev/sda1
.
Format the partition
I almost always use EXT4, because it's nice and reliable:
$ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
mke2fs 1.44.5 (15-Dec-2018)
Discarding device blocks: done
Creating filesystem with 1953506304 4k blocks and 244191232 inodes
Filesystem UUID: c597dcb4-83b2-4a93-a8a0-34d17af17729
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
102400000, 214990848, 512000000, 550731776, 644972544, 1934917632
Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (262144 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
Mount the partition
$ sudo mkdir /mnt/mydrive
$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/mydrive
Verify the mount shows up with
df
$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
...
/dev/sda1 7.3T 93M 6.9T 1% /mnt/mydrive
Bingo! It's mounted.
Make the mount persist
If you don't add the mount to
/etc/fstab
, it won't be mounted after you reboot!
First, get the
UUID
of the drive (the value inside the quotations in the output belowâand not the
PARTUUID
):
$ sudo blkid
...
/dev/sda1: UUID="c597dcb4-83b2-4a93-a8a0-34d17af17729" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="primary" PARTUUID="99457865-24e2-4e2a-becd-1d6498de2369"
Then, edit
/etc/fstab
(e.g.
sudo nano /etc/fstab
) and add a line like the following to the end:
UUID=c597dcb4-83b2-4a93-a8a0-34d17af17729 /mnt/mydrive ext4 defaults 0 0
Save that file and reboot.
Note: If
genfstabis available on your system, use it instead. Much less likely to asplode things:genfstab -U /mnt/mydrive | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab.Note 2: You can verify the fstab syntax is correct with
sudo findmnt --verify
Verify the mount persisted.
After reboot:
$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
...
/dev/sda1 7.3T 93M 6.9T 1% /mnt/mydrive