Re: Installing and Using NetBSD on 6 TB Drive

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Sun, 26 Aug 2018 22:15:36 -0500
    From:        John Maier <devocite%gmail.com@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <96a0249f-36f7-24ed-c5d8-17ba448991ef%gmail.com@localhost>

  | It is old enough, that it only supports BIOS drive booting.  Because of 
  | this, I can't leverage GPT partitioning/booting and therefore I'm 
  | constrained to a maximum of a 2TB NetBSD partition.

I don't know if anyone else answered this, but just in case, I don't think
that is correct.   You should be able to use GPT partitining, and the
"gpt biosboot" to manage everything with no issues (a bios that old most
likely does not understand that the PMBR type in the MBR that GPT
partitioned drives still have means that there really is no MBR, and just
go ahead and use it).

You might (probably will) need to allocate a GPT partition for the NetBSD
root, that lies entirely withing the first 2TB of space, but that should not be
too much of a hardship, unless you really want just a single huge NetBSD
partition (plus swap).

Just create the GPT, allocate the NetBSD root somewhere within (entirely
within) the first 2TB, and set up biosboot to boot from that partition.

The rest of the space can be a swap (GPT) partition, and then whatever
else you want to use the rest for (one big partition, or a bunch of smaller
ones.)

You can also allocate an EFI partition if you like, in case you replace the
motherboard/bios with something more up to date, and can keep the disks
and their raid unchanged ... it does not need to be very big (by comparison)
and does not need to be used at all.

kre