[CentOS] External HD partitioning & formatting considerations

Sat Nov 30 17:10:03 UTC 2019
Fred Smith <fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us>

On Sat, Nov 30, 2019 at 05:19:44PM +0100, Nicolas Kovacs wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> One of my clients has a mixed Linux/Mac OS/Windows environment in his office.
> He just purchased a 4 TB external hard disk, which he intends to use on his
> various workstations.
> 
> Up until recently, I've been using plain old MBR/FAT for hard disks in mixed
> environments. Fire up fdisk, make one big 0b type partition, and then format it
> using mkdosfs.
> 
> Unfortunately, there's a 2 TB limit to that.
> 
> Of course, I could still use a GPT partition, but then I'd still have to format
> it using a "common denominator" filesystem, e. g. FAT... which is also limited
> to 2 TB as far as I know.
> 
> So what now? Use Windows 10 to format the disk using NTFS? This, Windows and
> Linux could use it, and I'd have to check if Mac OS can manage NTFS file
> systems. A few years ago, it didn't.
> 
> Any suggestions?

Maybe UDF? 

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as
    the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chain
    letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers
    of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online
    community.
 --Roger Ebert, December, 1996
----------------------------- The Boulder Pledge -----------------------------