Add a filesystem to Big Disk

After ordering your Big Disk you'll need to add a filesystem to your Big Disk. You can follow the steps below to add a filesystem.

Linux based OS EXT4 partition:

- If parted has not been installed you can install parted by issuing the following command:

'yum install parted' or 'apt-get install parted'

Parted is used to list existing partitions and you will be able to find your unpartitioned Big Disk.

$ parted -l

Model: Virtio Block Device (virtblk)
Disk /dev/vda: 21.5GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 21.5GB 21.5GB primary ext4 boot

Model: Virtio Block Device (virtblk)
Disk /dev/vdb: 1074MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 1074MB 1073MB primary linux-swap(v1)

Error: /dev/vdc: unrecognised disk label
Model: Virtio Block Device (virtblk)
Disk /dev/vdc: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown
Disk Flags:

- Now you can go ahead and create a partition label:

$ parted /dev/vdc mklabel gpt

[root@bigdisk ~]# parted /dev/vdc mklabel gpt
Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.

- The next step is to create a partition:

$ parted /dev/vdc mkpart primary ext4 4MB 100%

[root@bigdisk ~]# parted /dev/vdc mkpart primary ext4 4MB 100%
Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.

- Use the lsblk tool to view your newly created partition:

$ lsblk

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
vda 253:0 0 20G 0 disk
└─vda1 253:1 0 20G 0 part /
vdb 253:16 0 1G 0 disk
└─vdb1 253:17 0 1023M 0 part [SWAP]
vdc 253:32 0 1.8T 0 disk
└─vdc1 253:33 0 1.8T 0 part

- The final step is to create a file system and add it to your fstab:

$ mkfs.ext4 -L bigdisk /dev/vdc1

mke2fs 1.42.9 (28-Dec-2013)
Filesystem label=bigdisk
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
122077184 inodes, 488280064 blocks
24414003 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=2636120064
14902 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
102400000, 214990848

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

- You should be able to see your big disk by issuing the following command:

$ blkid /dev/vdc1

/dev/vdc1: LABEL="bigdisk" UUID="783f8b15-fc9b-41a0-9708-c1944ff087bc" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="primary" PARTUUID="de4655ca-db4c-4205-ae3d-7cb07402afd6"

- Now you can create a mount point for the Big Disk:

$ mkdir /mnt/MyBigDisk

Note: this command will not show any output.

- Now you can go ahead and add your new fstab entry to the fstab:

$ vi /etc/fstab

- Now add the following line to your fstab:

LABEL=bigdisk /mnt/MyBigDisk    ext4 defaults,nofail 0 0

It should look something like this:

LABEL=SWAP swap swap default 0 0
LABEL=bigdisk /mnt/MyBigDisk       ext4 defaults,nofail 0 0

Now you can go ahead and save the file and close it.

- Manually mount your Big Disk:

$ mount -a

If you issue the command 'df -h' now, you should be able to view your newly created Big Disk:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1 20G 777M 18G 5% /
devtmpfs 993M 0 993M 0% /dev
tmpfs 1000M 0 1000M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 1000M 8.5M 992M 1% /run
tmpfs 1000M 0 1000M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 200M 0 200M 0% /run/user/0
/dev/vdc1 1.8T 77M 1.7T 1% /mnt/MyBigDisk

You have just added a file system to your Big Disk and it is ready to be used.

====================================================

Windows based OS:

Open the Windows Disk Management utility and initialise your Big Disk. Make sure you choose GPT to overcome MBR limitations such as a maximum addressable storage space of a disk to 2 TB.

The next step is to select your new un-configured disk and create one or more partitions.