3DM® 2 Online Help

Partitioning, Formatting, and Mounting Units
After you create a unit, whether through 3BM or 3DM, it needs to be formatted, partitioned, and mounted by the operating system before it can be used.
The steps vary, depending on whether your operating system is Windows, or Linux. For the appropriate steps, see:

| To partition, format, and mount under Windows

| To partition, format, and mount under Linux

To partition, format, and mount under Windows

1 | Boot the system and log in as a system administrator.

2 | Partition and format the new arrays or disks using the Administrative Tools from the Start menu:

a | Choose Computer Management from the Administrative Tools menu.

b | Select Storage.

c | Select Disk Management.

3 | Follow the steps that appear on-screen to write a signature to the drive.

4 | Right-click on the drive and select Create Volume.

| Note: If you plan on migrating your unit to a larger array or another RAID type in the future remember to select the dynamic disk option. Only dynamic disks can be resized into larger partitions. Older Windows systems cannot convert basic disks into dynamic disks after the file system has been created.

5 | Follow the steps that appear on-screen to create a volume and to assign a drive letter.

The volume is automatically mounted after formatting completes.
To partition, format, and mount under Linux

1 | Boot the system and log in as root.

2 | Open a terminal window.

3 | Partition the unit:

| Note: Depending on the version of Linux you are using, some of the following parted command outputs will be slightly different.

fdisk /dev/sda
If the unit is over 2 TB, use:
parted /dev/sda
(parted) mklabel
New disk label type? gpt
(parted) p
Disk geometry for /dev/sda: 0kB - 1074GB
Disk label type: gpt
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
parted /dev/sda
(parted) mkpart
Partition type? [primary]?
File system type? [ext2]?
Start? 0
End? 1074gb
(parted) p
Disk geometry for /dev/sda: 0kB - 1074GB
Disk label type: gpt
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags1 17kB 1074MB 1074MB

4 | Create or make the file system:

mkfs /dev/sda1
Use of the -j option to turn on journaling is recommended for large partitions.
For example:
mkfs -j /dev/sda1
If the partition is over 2TB, use parted to also make the file system:
parted /dev/sda1
(parted) mkfs
Partition number? 1
File system? [ext2]?
writing per-group metadata (begins)...0% to 100% is displayed)
(parted) quit (when completed)

5 | Mount the volume:

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

Related Topics
  Creating a Unit

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