Other A simple question about partitioning

-Snake-

-Snake-

I understand that a partition is a primary partition in a MBR schema and a partition is a partition in a BSD (slice) schema. I know it is very bad to use the BSD schema for the disk scheme, which is "dangerously dedicated" and what it implies, my question is, can I format a slice directly in ufs/zfs format and use it for the system without create a bsd schema in it?

Thanks you.
 
I have been using the "dangerously dedicated" scheme since the late 1990s. As far as I have been able to tell, it is only dangerous if you are sharing the same disk with multiple operating systems. Since all my FreeBSD systems used dedicated hardware, I fail to see a problem.

The problem comes when the disk is shared by multiple operating system as the other operating systems assume the disk is completely unformulated (or corrupt) and (may) format or fix it as soon as you connect it (or on reboot) without a prompt to ask you if it is okay.

As to using something supported by other operating systems, as was noted above, GPT is the "new" standard and should probably be preferred. MBR is legacy and many of us dropped it a while back.

[edit] I probably should have answered your actual question...

For UFS, you have to create FreeBSD partitions within the slice. That is how UFS works. You could make it a single UFS partition, but you still have to do it.

For ZFS, you don't really create partitions, you would dedicate the entire slice to ZFS and then use the ZFS tools to manage the space as you wish. ZFS is more flexible. It is worth taking the time to read up and understand the ZFS section of the FreeBSD Handbook.
 
ekingston said:
For ZFS, you don't really create partitions, you would dedicate the entire slice to ZFS and then use the ZFS tools to manage the space as you wish.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking you were referring to the difference between ZFS volume management and traditional partitioning schemes, but even so it's still generally recommended to create at least one partition on the disk nowadays. If you intend to boot from ZFS then the disk needs to be partitioned in order to stick a bootloader somewhere, and the bootloader tries to boot from partitions of the type freebsd-zfs. Partitioning disks from different manufacturers prevents data alignment problems that can impact performance, too. You can still use raw disks in a ZFS pool, but the OS needs to be installed on a dedicated disk and the disks should all be the exact same make and model.
 
ekingston said:
I have been using the "dangerously dedicated" scheme since the late 1990s. As far as I have been able to tell, it is only dangerous if you are sharing the same disk with multiple operating systems. Since all my FreeBSD systems used dedicated hardware, I fail to see a problem.

The problem comes when the disk is shared by multiple operating system as the other operating systems assume the disk is completely unformulated (or corrupt) and (may) format or fix it as soon as you connect it (or on reboot) without a prompt to ask you if it is okay.

As to using something supported by other operating systems, as was noted above, GPT is the "new" standard and should probably be preferred. MBR is legacy and many of us dropped it a while back.

[edit] I probably should have answered your actual question...

For UFS, you have to create FreeBSD partitions within the slice. That is how UFS works. You could make it a single UFS partition, but you still have to do it.

For ZFS, you don't really create partitions, you would dedicate the entire slice to ZFS and then use the ZFS tools to manage the space as you wish. ZFS is more flexible. It is worth taking the time to read up and understand the ZFS section of the FreeBSD Handbook.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much, you have resolved my doubt very clearly. Zfs sounds very interesting,I'll read the handbook calmly when I can.
 
ANOKNUSA said:
I'm thinking you were referring to the difference between ZFS volume management and traditional partitioning schemes, but even so it's still generally recommended to create at least one partition on the disk nowadays. If you intend to boot from ZFS then the disk needs to be partitioned in order to stick a bootloader somewhere, and the bootloader tries to boot from partitions of the type freebsd-zfs. Partitioning disks from different manufacturers prevents data alignment problems that can impact performance, too. You can still use raw disks in a ZFS pool, but the OS needs to be installed on a dedicated disk and the disks should all be the exact same make and model.
Click to expand...

Thanks you, Your explain is very usefull.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top