newinstall and GPT

Pieter Donche Pieter.Donche at ua.ac.be
Thu Dec 4 02:15:54 PST 2008


If one would use GPT (GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) Partition
Table right from the start of an installation of a new system,
how must one proceed ?

During install from a DVD, first you are asked to do a DOS-style ("fdisk")
partitioning (slice making in FreeBSD parlance), which would be responded 
with "A=Use Entire Disk".

What if you have, say 8 TB disk space (in RAID6, presenting itself
as a single "unused" space), will fdisk be able to deal with that ?
Has fdisk a limit as to the number of sectors (2^31- 1 = 2TB) ?
If fdisk can't deal with that, what then ???

Bsdlabel, the next tool coming up after fdisk, uses 32-bit integers
can't be used for 8 TB available space. Then GPT would have to be used
(uses 64-bit integers). How to proceed ?
Should your first during initial go for bsdlabel, and only use maximum 
2TB, continue with the rest of the install and then, after install, 
use GPT to change the FreeBSD existing partitions?

Any documents describing a FreeBSD install for large diskspaces with GPT ??






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