Created RaidZ. Each disk has it's own EFI. Is this ok?

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Created RaidZ. Each disk has it's own EFI. Is this ok?

Post by markpat3rson » Tue Sep 18, 2012 6:34 am

Hi

I just created a RaidZ using 3x 3TB internal drives using this command…

sudo zpool create Ocean raidz /dev/disk4 /dev/disk0 /dev/disk1

It appeared on my desktop as a 6TB drive, as expected. When I ran the command 'diskutil list' i got the following output…

----

/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: ZFS 3.0 TB disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk1
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: ZFS 3.0 TB disk1s2
/dev/disk4
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk4
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk4s1
2: ZFS 3.0 TB disk4s2

----

Is this a normal output? It appears that ZFS is present on slice2 of each disk, and there's an EFI on slice1.

I've read that it's preferable for ZFS to use the entire disk rather than a partition, so I specified zpool to use the entire disk in the zpool create command. This doesn't seem to have happened. I'm confused.

How do I get it to use the entire disk? After this, I tried creating 1 partition of 'free space' in Disk Utility but it still has the EFI partition and nothing else.

I'm sure I can delete the EFI partitions for each disk, but I'm not sure how, or even if it's safe to do so. I was under the impression that zpool creates a master EFI for the entire Raidz?

Puzzled.
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Re: Created RaidZ. Each disk has it's own EFI. Is this ok?

Post by markpat3rson » Tue Sep 18, 2012 6:50 am

*UPDATE*

I just ran…

sudo gpt destroy /dev/disk1
sudo gpt destroy /dev/disk2
sudo gpt destroy /dev/disk3

(i rebooted, which explains the different disk numbers this time)

to essentially create 3 unformatted disks, erasing the EFI partitions in the process. The Finder then informs me that they need to be formatted. I clicked ignore and ran diskutil list again…

---

/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk1
1: 0xEE 2.2 TB disk1s1
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk2
1: 0xEE 2.2 TB disk2s1
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk3
1: 0xEE 2.2 TB disk3s1

---

I then ran sudo zpool create Ocean raidz /dev/disk1 /dev/disk2 /dev/disk3 and got this…

---


/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk1
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: ZFS 3.0 TB disk1s2
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk2
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: ZFS 3.0 TB disk2s2
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk3
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk3s1
2: ZFS 3.0 TB disk3s2

and also this, which I may have either not seen or maybe it wasn't present last time…

/dev/disk5
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: zfs_pool_proxy Ocean *9.0 TB disk5

---

So zpool creates the EFI partitions itself, I assume.

Is this normal behavior?
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Re: Created RaidZ. Each disk has it's own EFI. Is this ok?

Post by roddi » Tue Sep 18, 2012 8:23 am

markpat3rson wrote:Is this normal behavior?


I think yes. You need the EFI partition so that the drive plays nice with mac os. See maczfs.org's article http://code.google.com/p/maczfs/wiki/GettingStarted
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Re: Created RaidZ. Each disk has it's own EFI. Is this ok?

Post by Nathaniel » Tue Sep 18, 2012 12:58 pm

Yes, the EFI partition is a normal part of Mac OS X partitioning behavior.
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