# Unable to partition 10TB array



## ben___ (Mar 16, 2010)

Hey everyone,

I'm trying to setup a new backup server and I'm having issues partitioning the 10TB virtual disk. It appears fdisk/cfdisk-linux are unable to write any changes to the table.

Anyone have any ideas?


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## Alt (Mar 16, 2010)

Use zfs


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## ben___ (Mar 16, 2010)

Alt said:
			
		

> Use zfs



I'm probably wrong, but don't I still need a partition for a file system?


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## Ghirai (Mar 16, 2010)

You can just newfs the disk device w/o doing any partitioning, then mount and use as usual.


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## ben___ (Mar 16, 2010)

Ghirai said:
			
		

> You can just newfs the disk device w/o doing any partitioning, then mount and use as usual.



Thanks


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## Jago (Mar 16, 2010)

ben___ said:
			
		

> I'm probably wrong, but don't I still need a partition for a file system?


No. You can use ZFS on top of a raw block device. That still doesn't make ZFS the best option for this particular case though, considering it makes the most sense to use it directly on top of individual disks, instead of massive hardware arrays.


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## aragon (Mar 16, 2010)

ben___ said:
			
		

> I'm trying to setup a new backup server and I'm having issues partitioning the 10TB virtual disk. It appears fdisk/cfdisk-linux are unable to write any changes to the table.
> 
> Anyone have any ideas?


Well, for one thing BIOS partitions are unable to exceed 2 TB with current 512 byte clusters.  You need to use GPT or dedicate the whole array to a file system or BSD label (ie. no partition table).


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## jgh@ (Mar 17, 2010)

aragon said:
			
		

> Well, for one thing BIOS partitions are unable to exceed 2 TB with current 512 byte clusters.  You need to use GPT or dedicate the whole array to a file system or BSD label (ie. no partition table).



What would be the step to do this?


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## aragon (Mar 17, 2010)

jgh said:
			
		

> What would be the step to do this?


Which one?


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