ZFS, GPTIDs, and using the whole disk

[Trond Endrestøl]

On Mon, 3 Mar 2014 22:20-0600, Andrew Berg wrote:

> On 2014.03.03 17:47, Chris Stankevitz wrote:
> > Please identify any false statements:
> > 
> > 1. ZFS prefers to use the entire disk.
> Prefers, maybe, but it is not a big deal on FreeBSD as has already been explained.
> 
> > 4. Because of (3) it is dangerous to use device names when building a zpool
> You would just need to be careful *at pool creation time* that you are using the correct block devices. You can swap them around all you
> like afterward since ZFS doesn't use device names to find block devices belonging to a pool.
> 
> > 7. You can create a zpool of GPTIDs
> You can refer to block devices by GPT labels when creating a pool. I'm not sure if that's what you meant.
> 
> I personally use GPT labels with each disk in my main pool having one partition for its entire space. Without GPT labels, the only reliable
> to distinguish between each disk is its serial number (they are all 3TB WD Reds), which would not be fun to use if one of them suddenly dies.

+1

If you want zpool status to show your carefully crafted GPT labels, 
export the pool and import the pool specifying -d /dev/gpt before 
putting the pool into production.

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