how to partition 4tb drive with fdisk (cfdisk)?

Question

I would like to buy big internal hard drive - bigger than 2tb, maybe 4tb. And I want to partition it with old fashioned fdisk. By doing it, I want to make two partitions, each less than 2tb. After that I want to format partitions with ext3. I don't want to use any modern partition tools - like gparted, gdisk, etc. Is it possible to divide 4tb disk onto two partions of 2tb each using fdisk? If it is, would they be reliable after that?

• if the only possible way is to use gparted or the like, then I would better buy 2tb disk and partition it with fdisk.

The reason, I am asking that, is that I don't trust gparted. I think, big partitions made by gparted could be unreliable. And I don't trust assurances that they are reliable. Of course, some of them are happy with them. As is always the case with something. But I always looking for negative, not positive information. I have very little experience with big drives, but I have already an impression: they are unreliable. My WD drives never crushed before. As soon as I've bought WD 4tb and formatted it with gparted, it worked for about two years, and now it's completely heap of junk. And I have intuitive feeling, that the fault lies in gparted and gpt. I don't want to risk to use them any more.

Solution

Well before I tell you the reasons why it isn't possible for gparted to destroy your HDD, I'll tell you that fdisk can't deal with partitions larger than 2TB, so you should be able to partition it with 2x2TB partitions. But I wouldn't recommend it.

The answer you're looking for is: "Yes, you can do that, but be careful"

The answer that other people will want (or want to give) is that gparted really can't destroy a disk like that. You can do whatever you want to a hard disk with formatting and partitioning and what have you (as long as you don't do anything insane like writing 10,000 TB to it a day *coughcoughGooglecough*) and it can always be reformatted. Gparted is the way to go for anything modern. It will work with most everything out there (if it's post-War On Terrorism) and is easier to work with. It won't hurt to use fdisk, but just make sure you be careful. To stay on the safe side, I would stay under 1.5TB per partition rather than trying to ride the line, if you're set on using fdisk.

The answer that I want to give is: "Use gparted. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it at all."

Comments

[oldfred]

If you use fdisk, you end up with a maximum drive size of 2TiB. MBR tech details including 2TiB limit and GPT link en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record AND: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table If you really do not want gparted use gdisk. It is in new installs and in repository. rodsbooks.com/gdisk Some drives just do not last as long as others.