Question about GPT HDD

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#1

I just ordered this HDD from Newegg yesterday: Newegg.com - HITACHI Deskstar H3IK30003272SW (0S03208) 3TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

This is my current mobo: ASRock > Products > G43Twins-FullHD

Using openSUSE 11.4 x86_64 (no other OSes installed).

I’m aware that 4K HDDs require GPT partitioning. My question is: what should I know and what do I need to do so that the system/software recognizes this as a 3 TB HDD? Do I need to do anything? Will the system/YaST partitioning software “automatically see” the HDD as 3 TBs?

#2

Not the 4K sector size requires GPT partitioning but the 3 TB size of the disk. I’ve never installed openSUSE on GUID partitioning except on Mac hardware but it doesn’t count, since I used MBR emulation. As far as I know - but it might have changed - only Grub2 supported booting from GPT. They might have added this feature to openSUSE Legacy Grub in the meantime, I don’t know. I would be interested in reading your report if you manage it.

#3

Oops, that is what I meant.

I forgot to mention that is HDD is NOT for booting/installing the OS. It will only be for storage so this still doesn’t answer my question.

#4

Oh, that should make things easier then since the Linux kernel supports GPT. It is/used to be only a problem for booting. I don’t know how the YaST partitioner deals with GPT. But I would say it doesn’t hurt to try on a blank HD.

Maybe this article might give you a clue: Make the most of large drives with GPT and Linux

#5

Thanks, I’ll give that a read.

#6

Well, I read the article. I checked YaST’s partitioner and it indeed does have the option to create new partition tables with GPT, so I think I should be fine.