Initializing and formatting your volume

Start diskmgmt.msc to open the Disk Management console.

In the Initialize Disk dialog box, initialize the volume as a MBR (Master Boot Record) partition. When selecting the partition style, you should take into account the type of volume you are connecting to—cached or stored—as shown in the following table.

Create a simple volume:

1. Bring the volume online to initialize it. All the available volumes are displayed in the disk management console.

2. Open the context (right-click) menu for the disk, and then choose New Simple Volume.

   Important

   Be careful not to format the wrong disk. Check to make sure that the disk you are formatting matches the size of the local disk you allocated to the gateway VM and that it has a status of Unallocated.

3. Specify the maximum disk size.

4. Assign a drive letter or path to your volume, and format the volume by choosing Perform a quick format.

   Important

   We strongly recommend using Perform a quick format for cached volumes. Doing so results in less initialization I/O, smaller initial snapshot size, and the fastest time to a usable volume. It also avoids using cached volume space for the full format process.

   Note

   The time that it takes to format the volume depends on the size of the volume. The process might take several minutes to complete.

Change directory to the /dev folder.

Run the sudo cfdisk command.

Identify your new volume by using the following command. To find new volumes, you can list the partition layout of your volumes.

$ lsblk

An "unrecognized volumes label" error for the new unpartitioned volume appears.

Initialize your new volume. When selecting the partition style, you should take into account the size and type of volume you are connecting to—cached or stored—as shown in the following table.

For an MBR partition, use the following command: sudo parted /dev/your volume mklabel msdos

For a GPT partition, use the following command: sudo parted /dev/your volume mklabel gpt

Create a partition by using the following command.

sudo parted -a opt /dev/your volume mkpart primary file system 0% 100%

Assign a drive letter to the partition and create a file system by using the following command.

sudo mkfs -L datapartition /dev/your volume

Mount the file system by using the following command.

sudo mount -o defaults /dev/your volume /mnt/your directory