Fdisk

It is a regular practice for server administrators. In most cases, large storage devices are divided into separate sections called partitions.

At first, verify that you have available space on the server for partitions.

fdisk -l

Following command will list all detected hard disks:

fdisk -l | grep '^Disk'

Choose disk or device you want to create or make partition (such as /dev/vda, /dev/vda1, /dev/sda, /dev/sdb etc). Here I will partition the disk /dev/sda (256GB) into /dev/sda1 (100GB) and /dev/sda2 (156GB). Please follow the following steps to create partitions accordingly:

Run
```
fdisk /dev/sda
```
Type ‘n’ to create a new partition (/dev/sda1)
Select partition type (default p)
Set partition number (default 1)
Set First sector (default 2048)
Set Last sector of the partition: +100G
Type ‘p’ to view the partition.
Then type ‘n’ to create another partition (/dev/sda2)
Select default partition type, default partition number, default First sector and Last sector
Type ‘p’ to view the partition.
Type ‘w” to save the partition.
Run the command ‘partprobe’ to have the OS detect the new partition table.
```
partprobe
```
Format partitions with the ext4 file system
```
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
```
Create a directory to mount the new drive, for example: /data, /backup [Learn more]
- Create directory within root
```
mkdir ~/data
```
- Create directory within /
```
mkdir -p /backup
```
To enable persistent mounting of the file system, even after a reboot, add the following to /etc/fstab:
```
/dev/sda1 /mnt/data ext4 defaults 0 0
/dev/sda2 /mnt/backup ext4 defaults 0 0
```
fstab [Learn more]
Directory Tree Structure In Linux [Learn more]

fdisk command line utility is used to view and manage hard disks and partitions on Linux systems.

Commonly used fdisk commands.

n – Create partition
p – print partition table
d – delete a partition
q – exit without saving the changes
w – write the changes and exit.

Display disk cylinders | View all existing disk partitions | command to list the partitions | View all Disk Partitions in Linux | List Partitions
```
fdisk -l
```
View partitions of a specific hard disk (for example, vda)
```
fdisk -l /dev/vda
```
To get more information detailed and size readable by human of a specific hard disk.
```
partx -s /dev/vda
```
Delete a hard disk partition
If you would like to combine several partitions (for example, /dev/vda2 and /dev/vda3) into a single disk partition, you have to first delete all those individual partitions, as shown below.
```
fdisk /dev/vda
```
Then
```
Command (m for help): p
```
Then
```
Command (m for help): d
```
Then
```
Partition number (1-5): 3
```
Then
```
Command (m for help): d
```
Then
```
Partition number (1-5): 2
```
Then
```
Command (m for help): w
```
Create a new disk partition
```
fdisk /dev/sda
```
```
Command (m for help): n
```

Creating and deleting partitions in Linux

Fdisk command line in Linux to help to manage partitions