[CentOS] Formatting a USB Drive

[m.roth at 5-cent.us]

Jason T. Slack-Moehrle wrote:
>
> I have a Drobo, connected to a CentOS 6.4 box. The box sees it as
> /dev/sdg.
>
> I want to format it ext3 (as they dont support ext4) but when I try I get:
<snip>
> So I run:
> # parted
> GNU Parted 2.1
> Using /dev/sda
> Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
> (parted) select /dev/sdg
> Using /dev/sdg
> (parted) print
> Model: DROBO DroboPro (scsi)
> Disk /dev/sdg: 17.6TB
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
> Partition Table: gpt
>
> Number  Start  End  Size  File system  Name  Flags
>
> (parted)
>
> and looking at an example of creating a partition: (parted) mkpart primary
> 106 16179
>
> I dont know what to do next since I dont see any partitions listed. I dont
> know what do to for the start and end point, although the man page says
> "size in MB". Do I just say 0 to (and convert 16.0TB to MB? Yes, I know it
> says 17.6 TB but this model drobo can only support partitions up to 16tb
> without making a second partition.
>
> Can anyone provide some advice on that I am missing conceptually?

Several issues. First, if you use 4k blocks, the max filesystem size for
ext3 is 16TB (see wikipedia on ext3). Second, I can't remember where, but
on some filesystem tool's manpage, I read that the tools have problems
going over 16TB. Third, fsck on a 16TB filesystem will take *days*,
literally. I'm setting up, right now, a humongous RAID box, and I'll
probably be divvying up the 42TB (mirrored!) as 3 14TB filesystems, and
they're going to be ext4.

        mark