[mythtv-users] New drive: skip partition table?

[Mike Perkins]

On 01/01/13 23:45, Karl Dietz wrote:
> On 02.01.2013 00:22, Preston Crow wrote:
>> I just installed a new drive. I have an SSD for boot/OS, so the new
>> drive is just one large file system for media. Is there anything wrong
>> with creating the file system on the raw disk device, using the whole
>> drive, instead of creating a single large partition?
>
> I would not do that as you gain nothing (maybe 1mb of space due to
> alignment) but there are small risks of data loss due to pilot error.
>
> A partition table / EFI/GPT label helps with preventing accidental data
> loss when you boot another operating system... ("found an empty disk,
> want me to format it?")
>
And, these days, a label helps your OS know where to mount the disk in your file 
hierarchy. Modern systems seem to be going away from the "/dev/sda1" type of 
identifier, based on hardware location, to "UUID=xxxx-xxxx-..." style 
declarations. This means that if you have to move your disks about for any 
reason the OS can still work out where everything is.

-- 

Mike Perkins