Re: formating a large disk

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> I have 2 x 2Tb SATA disk that are setup as CCD and am trying to
> format the with newfs

newfs actually doesn't reformat; it just rebuilds the filesystem.  I
don't think ccd supports formatting, though in theory it could pass
such commands down to its member drives.  You are unlikely to need to
format anyway, especially with disks recent enough to be terabyte-sized.

> and keep getting errors.. I can format a drive if the partition is
> less than 2Tb however need more space..

This is a limitation in the partition table; it has a 32-bit limit that
means it cannot represent a partition over 2TB.  (The limit may
actually be one sector less than 2TB; I haven't bothered looking in
enough detail to tell.)

> Any hep will be appreciated.. did some googling and found solution
> for linux but none for netbsd

The most expeditious thing is to use the raw partition.  Since you
wrote to port-amd64, I assume you're using amd64, in which case this
will be d, so you'd use ccd0d (or ccd1d or whatever).  Of course, this
works only if you don't mind making the whole ccd a single filesystem.

Another alternative may be available, depending on what NetBSD version
you're using.  I've seen GPT support described as, among other things,
raising this limit; if your NetBSD includes GPT support, that may work.
(I don't know how you'd go about using it; I've never played with it.)

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