[sclug] Partitions on /dev/sdb

[David Given]

Sapan Ganguly wrote:
> I've stuck a 500Gb RAID array on a machine under /dev/sdb.  I'm just
> going to put data on it.  Is there any technical reason for me not to
> just format and mount it as /dev/sdb?  Or should I create a big
> partiton on it as /dev/sdb1 first?  The reason I ask is that it seems
> to accept /dev/sdb as one big partition and I can apply /dev/sdb to my
> mount point, it seems to work.  Am I going to run into a problem
> later?

Well, it'll *work*, kind of, but it's a really odd way of doing things.
Not having a partition table is generally considered a bad thing:

* If you ever move the drive, other systems may think it's unformatted
(and so will overwrite the first sector without asking you).

* Any automounting tools will fail, because they won't see any data.

* If your file system just happens to contain the appropriate magic near
the beginning, it may trigger partition table autodetection and you'll
get really confused.

I'd strongly suggest just creating the partition and living with the one
cylinder of overhead it uses... in fact, it's probably worth creating a
partition, turning it into a volume group, assigning a volume in there
and putting your filesystem on that volume. It'll add flexibility should
you ever decide to rearrange the disk.

-- 
+- David Given --McQ-+ "You cannot truly appreciate _Atlas Shrugged_
|  dg at cowlark.com    | until you have read it in the original Klingon."
| (dg at tao-group.com) | --- Sea Wasp on r.a.sf.w
+- www.cowlark.com --+

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