Example of using parted mkpart

Parted is a partitioning tool in linux that can be used to make partitions that are larger than 2TB in size. It is similar to fdisk, but uses gpt to extend past the 2TB limitation. First install the “parted” tool. If you are in centos this can be done using yum. Then invoke the parted command, specifying the device to partition, as noted in the mkpart example below.

[root@computer ~]# parted /dev/sdb
(parted) mkpart
Partition type?  primary/extended? primary
File system type?  [ext2]? ext3
Start? 0
End? -1

Additionally, it is also possible to perform the same task in one command, as follows:

(parted) mkpart /dev/sdb1 0 -1

Notice how in the examples above one can specify “-1” as the end point. This is short hand for the last usable section on the disk. It is convenient to not have to perform specific calculation and conversion to utilize some disk size.

Parted is a useful tool in linux that can make partitioning large partitions easily.