How to partition drive for ZFS

Question

I'm trying to create a ZFS pool using the following command:

zpool create MyPool disk /dev/sda

However, I get the following error:

cannot use '/dev/disk': must be a block device or regular file

I feel like I should have been able to find someone with this issue, but I haven't been able to. /dev/sda is a blank drive. Where am I going wrong? Do I have to format the drive before creating a zpool? If so, what format do I use?

Solution 1

Remove "disk" from your command line. It's the cause of the error you're receiving.

zpool create MyPool sda

Solution 2

Try using this guide: Aaron Topence - ZFS on Linux.

Assuming you are trying to create a zfs pool called MyPool, using /dev/sda as a disk, try:
# zpool create MyPool sda

Comments

[E-rich]

The man page says you should be able to specify the full path, but removing it made it work.

[ewwhite]

You can use the full path as well. It's not needed. The error here was using "disk".