Re: Is fdisk necessary to partition a second disk exclusively for data?

[Patrick Welche <prlw1%cam.ac.uk@localhost>]

On Thu, Jan 06, 2011 at 01:46:14AM +0000, Gerard Lally wrote:
> I am still trying to understand partitioning in NetBSD. I understand
> the need to partition the active disk using fdisk, but am I correct in
> thinking I don't need to use fdisk to partition a second disk dedicated
> entirely to data? Is disklabel partitioning enough for this second disk?
> 
> If so, can I offset the data partition at sector 0 or do I need to
> offset it at sector 63?
> 
> And finally, is a disk partitioned this way able to grow to more than 2
> TB? I understand a disk partitioned using fdisk has a 2 TB
> partition-size limit, but NetBSD supports enormous partitions of
> zetabyes, which makes me think these partitions must be created using
> disklabel !!!
> 
> I apologise if these are very basic questions for people here. My head
> is spinning trying to understand the online documentation.

I think that you are correct on all counts! (I used to get away with root
starting at offset 0, and no fdisk, but BIOSes seem to have got more picky
"recently" ?10 years? - so all good for data disks...)

Cheers,

Patrick