parted

Parted is required utility for disks with GPT partitions. That included large USB disks.

TIP: While creating partition you can specify size in %. For example, if you do not have any partitions in your drive partition table (empty partition table) you can use the following command to create primary partition.

parted --align optimal /dev/sdb mkpart 0% 100%

Apparently, using % causes parted to automatically align the sectors for best performance:

(parted) mkpart primary ext4 0% 100%

1. How to align partitions for best performance using parted – Rainbow Chard

   • jsaintro

     The optimal feature only works when you’re using inexact units. By default parted uses Megabytes which is an inexact unit but that only allows +/- 500 KB of adjustment. On my system proper alignment requires over 1MB of adjustment. So using the default of ‘Compact’ or ‘MB’ will always throw an aliment warning. Specifying a larger unit also specifies a larger adjustment range I.E. ‘GB’ allows +/- 500 MB of adjustment. The percentage unit, by it’s nature, will always have enough range to allow proper adjustment

     If you use ‘”mkpart primary 0% 20GB” that should work.

All modern PC operating systems support GPT. Some, including macOS and Microsoft Windows on x86, support booting from GPT partitions only on systems with EFI firmware, but FreeBSD and most Linux distributions can boot from GPT partitions on systems with both legacy BIOS firmware interface and EFI.

The widespread MBR partitioning scheme, dating from the early 1980s, imposed limitations that affect the use of modern hardware. One of the main limitations is the usage of 32 bits for storing block addresses and quantity information. For hard disks with 512-byte sectors, the MBR partition table entries allow up to a maximum of 2 TiB (2³² × 512 bytes).

Intel therefore developed a new partition table format in the late 1990s as part of what eventually became UEFI. As of 2010^[update], GPT forms a subset of the UEFI specification.^[2] GPT allocates 64 bits for logical block addresses, therefore allowing a maximum disk size of 2⁶⁴ sectors. For disks with 512-byte sectors, maximum size is 9.4 ZB (9.4 × 10²¹ bytes) or 8 ZiB (9,444,732,965,739,290,427,392 bytes, coming from 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 (2⁶⁴) sectors × 512 (2⁹) bytes per sector).^[1][3]

Alignment issue

Please not that parted provides an `–align` argument to do this automatically.

How to align partitions for best performance using parted – Rainbow Chard

1. parted provides an `–align` argument to do this automatically.

   http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/38164/create-partition-aligned-using-parted

 

How to

8 Linux 'Parted' Commands to Create, Resize and Rescue Disk Partitions

Resize Linux Disk Partition

Parted includes multiple useful functions and one of them is "resizepart". Looks like it works for ext4 filesystems (man page is junk and incorrect)

The command  is resizepart. As all commands in parted if parameters are not supplied they are retrieved via dialog.

Rescue Linux Disk Partition

Parted supports a “rescue" utility that helps you recover a lost partition between a starting and ending point. If a partition is found within that range, it will attempt to restore it.

The command is rescue

NEWS CONTENTS

• 20200506 : Creating and managing partitions in Linux with parted Enable Sysadmin by Tyler Carrigan ( Apr 30, 2020 , www.redhat.com )
• 20200506 : How to align partitions for best performance using parted ( Rainbow Chard )
• 20200506 : How To Create a Partition Using parted Command ( How To Create a Partition Using parted Command, )

Old News ;-)

[May 06, 2020] Creating and managing partitions in Linux with parted Enable Sysadmin by Tyler Carrigan

Apr 30, 2020 | www.redhat.com

Red Hat Sysddmin

Listing partitions with parted

The first thing that you want to do anytime that you need to make changes to your disk is to find out what partitions you already have. Displaying existing partitions allows you to make informed decisions moving forward and helps you nail down the partition names will need for future commands. Run the parted command to start parted in interactive mode and list partitions. It will default to your first listed drive. You will then use the print command to display disk information.

[root@rhel ~]# parted /dev/sdc
    GNU Parted 3.2
    Using /dev/sdc
    Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
    (parted) print                                                            
    Error: /dev/sdc: unrecognised disk label
    Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi)                                           
    Disk /dev/sdc: 1074MB
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
    Partition Table: unknown
    Disk Flags:
    (parted)

Creating new partitions with parted

Now that you can see what partitions are active on the system, you are going to add a new partition to /dev/sdc . You can see in the output above that there is no partition table for this partition, so add one by using the mklabel command. Then use mkpart to add the new partition. You are creating a new primary partition using the ext4 architecture. For demonstration purposes, I chose to create a 50 MB partition.

(parted) mklabel msdos                                                    
    (parted) mkpart                                                           
    Partition type?  primary/extended? primary                                
    File system type?  [ext2]? ext4                                           
    Start? 1                                                                  
    End? 50                                                                   
    (parted)                                                                  
    (parted) print                                                            
    Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi)
    Disk /dev/sdc: 1074MB
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
    Partition Table: msdos
    Disk Flags:
    
    Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
     1      1049kB  50.3MB  49.3MB  primary  ext4         lba

Modifying existing partitions with parted

Now that you have created the new partition at 50 MB, you can resize it to 100 MB, and then shrink it back to the original 50 MB. First, note the partition number. You can find this information by using the print command. You are then going to use the resizepart command to make the modifications.

(parted) resizepart                                                       
    Partition number? 1                                                       
    End?  [50.3MB]? 100                                                       
        
    (parted) print                                                            
    Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi)
    Disk /dev/sdc: 1074MB
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
    Partition Table: msdos
    Disk Flags:
    
    Number  Start   End    Size    Type     File system  Flags
     1      1049kB  100MB  99.0MB  primary

You can see in the above output that I resized partition number one from 50 MB to 100 MB. You can then verify the changes with the print command. You can now resize it back down to 50 MB. Keep in mind that shrinking a partition can cause data loss.

    (parted) resizepart                                                       
    Partition number? 1                                                       
    End?  [100MB]? 50                                                         
    Warning: Shrinking a partition can cause data loss, are you sure you want to
    continue?
    Yes/No? yes                                                               
    
    (parted) print
    Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi)
    Disk /dev/sdc: 1074MB
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
    Partition Table: msdos
    Disk Flags:
    
    Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
     1      1049kB  50.0MB  49.0MB  primary

Removing partitions with parted

Now, let's look at how to remove the partition you created at /dev/sdc1 by using the rm command inside of the parted suite. Again, you will need the partition number, which is found in the print output.

NOTE: Be sure that you have all of the information correct here, there are no safeguards or are you sure? questions asked. When you run the rm command, it will delete the partition number you give it.

    (parted) rm 1                                                             
    (parted) print                                                            
    Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi)
    Disk /dev/sdc: 1074MB
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
    Partition Table: msdos
    Disk Flags:
    
    Number  Start  End  Size  Type  File system  Flags

How to align partitions for best performance using parted

Rainbow Chard

Jonathon Anderson

parted provides an `–align` argument to do this automatically.

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/38164/create-partition-aligned-using-parted

2nd May 2016

Volta X

I've got a new 8TB drive, and have run into a situation where the optimal alignment calculated by parted doesn't satisfy the minimal alignment tests, so various other tools that only check minimal alignment throw errors. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it seems that if it doesn't meet the minimal alignment it can't really be the optimal alignment.

- 8< -
$ cat /sys/block/sdi/queue/optimal_io_size
33553920
$ cat /sys/block/sdi/queue/minimum_io_size
4096
$ cat /sys/block/sdi/queue/physical_block_size
4096
$ cat /sys/block/sdi/queue/logical_block_size
512
$ cat /sys/block/sdi/alignment_offset
0
- 8< -

Parted calculates optimal alignment to 65535s, apparently aligning on logical blocks rather than physical blocks:

- 8< -
$ sudo parted /dev/sdi mkpart 8tb ext4 0% 100% unit s p free align-check min 1 align-check opt 1
Model: Seagate Expansion Desk (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdi: 15628053167s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
34s 65534s 65501s Free Space
1 65535s 15628000379s 15627934845s ext4 8tb
15628000380s 15628053133s 52754s Free Space

1 not aligned
1 aligned
- 8< -

Asking for minimal alignment, parted starts that partition on sector 40, which obviously doesn't pass align-check opt. Fdisk uses sector 2048, which passes parted's min check, but not opt. Frustrated at this point, I scale the 65535 parted calculated with 512b sectors to 4k sectors and make a partition starting at 524280s, which satisfies both of parted's alignment checks, and stops all the other tools complaining, at a cost of a few hundred MiB storage:

- 8< -
$ sudo parted /dev/sdi mkpart 8tb ext4 524280s 100% unit MiB p free align-check min 1 align-check opt 1
Model: Seagate Expansion Desk (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdi: 7630885MiB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
0.02MiB 256MiB 256MiB Free Space
1 256MiB 7630860MiB 7630604MiB ext4 8tb
7630860MiB 7630885MiB 25.8MiB Free Space

1 aligned
1 aligned
- 8< -

Now, certainly losing ~300MiB out of ~7.3TiB isn't an issue, but I wonder:

a) was this exercise of any value,
b) if so, is there a better way to solve for a starting sector that will satisfy both constraints, and
c) if so, how hard is it going to be for me to patch parted to do the right thing here?

Thoughts?

How To Create a Partition Using parted Command

Creating Primary or Logical Partition in Selected Disk Using mkpart

One can create either Primary or Logical partitions using mkpart command. Options can be primary and logical respectively. Example for both options are shown as below (we will create 2 partitions of 200MB each as primary and logical partition) :
a. Creating primary partition

(parted) mkpart primary                                                   
File system type?  [ext2]? ext4                                           
Start? 0                                                                  
End? 200MB
Warning: The resulting partition is not properly aligned for best performance.
Ignore/Cancel? I

(parted) print
Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 21.5GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start  End    Size   Type     File system  Flags
 1      512B   200MB  200MB  primary

b. Creating logical partition

(parted) mkpart logical                                                   
parted: invalid token: logical
Partition type?  primary/extended? extended                               
Start? 201M                                                               
End? 402M

(parted) print                                                            
Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 21.5GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start  End    Size   Type      File system  Flags
 1      512B   200MB  200MB  primary
 2      201MB  402MB  200MB  extended               lba

NOTE: Parted asks for the FS-Type while creating primary partition unless a logical partition is to be created.

Remove a Partition Using rm Command

One can also delete an existing partition using "rm" command, as shown in below example we have 2 partitions with number 1 and 2.

(parted) print                                                            
Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 21.5GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start  End    Size   Type      File system  Flags
 1      512B   200MB  200MB  primary
 2      201MB  402MB  200MB  extended               lba

To delete partition 2:

(parted) rm                                                               
Partition number? 2

Verify that you can see only the partition number 1 now.

(parted) print                                                            
Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 21.5GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start  End    Size   Type     File system  Flags
 1      512B   200MB  200MB  primary

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parted(8) partition change program - Linux man page

More information about parted available from redhat: http://people.redhat.com/msnitzer/docs/io-limits.txt

Reference

This manual page documents parted briefly. Complete documentation is distributed with the package in GNU Info format; see near the bottom.

Options

-h, --help

displays a help message

-l, --list

lists partition layout on all block devices

-m, --machine

displays machine parseable output

-s, --script

never prompts for user intervention

-v, --version

displays the version

-a alignment-type, --align alignment-type

Set alignment for newly created partitions, valid alignment types are:

none

Use the minimum alignment allowed by the disk type.

cylinder

Align partitions to cylinders.

minimal

Use minimum alignment as given by the disk topology information. This and the opt value will use layout information provided by the disk to align the logical partition table addresses to actual physical blocks on the disks. The min value is the minimum aligment needed to align the partition properly to physical blocks, which avoids performance degradation.

optimal

Use optimum alignment as given by the disk topology information. This aligns to a multiple of the physical block size in a way that guarantees optimal performance.

Commands

[device]

The block device to be used. When none is given, parted will use the first block device it finds.

[command [options]]

Specifies the command to be executed. If no command is given, parted will present a command prompt. Possible commands are:

align-check alignment-type partition

Determine whether the starting sector of partition is aligned for the disk. alignment-type is "minimal" or "optimal".

check partition

Do a simple check on partition.

cp [source-device] source dest

Copy the source partition's filesystem on source-device (or the current device if no other device was specified) to the dest partition on the current device.

help [command]

Print general help, or help on command if specified.

mkfs partition fs-type

Make a filesystem fs-type on partition. fs-type can be one of "fat16", "fat32", "ext2", "linux-swap", or "reiserfs".

mklabel label-type

Create a new disklabel (partition table) of label-type. label-type should be one of "bsd", "dvh", "gpt", "loop", "mac", "msdos", "pc98", or "sun".

mkpart part-type [fs-type] start end

Make a part-type partition with filesystem fs-type (if specified), beginning at start and ending at end (by default in megabytes). fs-type can be one of "fat16", "fat32", "ext2", "HFS", "linux-swap", "NTFS", "reiserfs", or "ufs". part-type should be one of "primary", "logical", or "extended".

mkpartfs part-type fs-type start end

Make a part-type partition with filesystem fs-type beginning at start and ending at end (by default in megabytes). Using this command is discouraged. Instead use mkpart to create an empty partition, and then use external tools like mke2fs(8) to create the filesystem.

move partition start end

Move partition so that it begins at start and ends at end. Note: move never changes the minor number.

name partition name

Set the name of partition to name. This option works only on Mac, PC98, and GPT disklabels. The name can be placed in quotes, if necessary.

print

Display the partition table.

quit

Exit from parted.

rescue start end

Rescue a lost partition that was located somewhere between start and end. If a partition is found, parted will ask if you want to create an entry for it in the partition table.

resize partition start end

Resize the filesystem on partition so that it begins at start and ends at end (by default in megabytes).

rm partition

Delete partition.

select device

Choose device as the current device to edit. device should usually be a Linux hard disk device, but it can be a partition, software raid device, or an LVM logical volume if necessary.

set partition flag state

Change the state of the flag on partition to state. Supported flags are: "boot", "root", "swap", "hidden", "raid", "lvm", "lba", "legacy_boot" and "palo". state should be either "on" or "off".

unit unit

Set unit as the unit to use when displaying locations and sizes, and for interpreting those given by the user when not suffixed with an explicit unit. unit can be one of "s" (sectors), "B" (bytes), "kB", "MB", "GB", "TB", "%" (percentage of device size), "cyl" (cylinders), "chs" (cylinders, heads, sectors), or "compact" (megabytes for input, and a human-friendly form for output).

version

Display version information and a copyright message.

Known Issues

To manually resize an ext3 filesystem and/or a partition use resize2fs(8), fdisk(8) or similar tools. For LVM situations, you will need to use the LVM commands to resize the LVM elements.

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