Add a New Disk Larger Than 2TB to An Existing Linux

I am using fdisk and parted utilities to do this configuration.

First list the current partition details using fdisk command as shown.

# fdisk -l

For the purpose of this article, I am attaching a hard disk of 20GB capacity, which can be followed for disk larger than 2TB as well. Once you added a disk, verify the partition table using same fdisk command as shown.

# fdisk -l

Tip: If you are adding a physical hard disk, you may find that partitions already created. In such cases, you can use fdsik to delete the same before using parted.

# fdisk /dev/xvdd

Use d switch for the command to delete the partition and w to write the changes and quit.

Important: You need to be careful while deleting the partition. This will erase the data on the disk.

Now its time to partition a new hard disk using parted command.

# parted /dev/xvdd print free
Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi)
Disk /dev/xvdd: 12.9GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
32.3kB 1049kB 1016kB Free Space
1 1049kB 5001MB 5000MB primary ext2
5001MB 9233MB 4232MB Free Space
2 9233MB 12.9GB 3652MB primary

# parted /dev/xvdd

Set the partition table format to GPT

(parted) mklabel gpt

Create the Primary partition and assign the disk capacity, here I am using 20GB (in your case it would be 2TB).

(parted) mkpart primary 0GB 20GB

Just for curiosity, let’s see how this new partition is listed in fdisk.

# fdisk /dev/xvdd

Now format and then mount the partition and add the same in /etc/fstab which controls the file systems to be mounted when the system boots.

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/xvdd1

Once partition has been formatted, now it’s time mount the partition under /data1.

# mount /dev/xvdd1 /data1

For permanent mounting add the entry in /etc/fstab file.

/dev/xvdd1     /data1      ext4      defaults  0   0

Important: Kernel should support GPT in order to partition using GPT format. By default RHEL/CentOS have Kernel with GPT support, but for Debian/Ubuntu you need to recompile the kernel after changing the config.