UFS Howto: My backup disk

I've installed an external sata backup drive (da0) for use with dump backup. I want to do periodic full system backups The drive is connected via an usb docking station.
I'm considering using sade to configure the drive for backup only, but as a new user I'm somewhat intimidated as to how to partition & format it, lest I muck up the overall system. I would particularly like to know, as I go, how to check that the partitioning & formatting have each been successful. I am running 11.2 which will become unsupported from 10th Sept.
If you think there are better preferences for a new user for backup & drive configuration please let me know. i'm not looking for anything highly sophisticated.

Thanks very much for any help.
 
gpart(8) is your friend for partitioning drives or checking how they are partitioned. If your drive is named da0, your can check partitioning with
gpart show -p da0. For commands that change the drive (like creating a partition scheme on a new, blank drive or adding a partition to an existing drive) you'll need to run them with root privileges. gpart is easy to work with. Here are two examples:
ada0
Code:
tingo@kg-core2$ gpart show -p ada0
=>       40  937703008    ada0  GPT  (447G)
         40     409600  ada0p1  efi  (200M)
     409640  125829120  ada0p2  freebsd-ufs  (60G)
  126238760   14680064  ada0p3  freebsd-swap  (7.0G)
  140918824     409600  ada0p4  efi  (200M)
  141328424  125419520  ada0p5  freebsd-ufs  [bootme]  (60G)
  266747944  670955104          - free -  (320G)
nvd0
Code:
tingo@kg-core2$ gpart show -p nvd0
=>        40  2000409184    nvd0  GPT  (954G)
          40  2000409184  nvd0p1  freebsd-ufs  (954G)
hope this helps.
 
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