Nikos Chantziaras wrote: > On 13/12/2018 11:18, Dale wrote: >> Nikos Chantziaras wrote: >>> >>> I'd recommend just using mkfs instead of using your own parameters: >>> >>> mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sdb1 >>> >>> It will use the parameters from /etc/mke2fs.conf. This is the safest >>> way to format a partition. >>> >>> >>> >> >> May try that next, if it ever finishes this current attempt. It's been >> a hour for the current format attempt. I won't be surprised if it gives >> up too. > > Did you check for any errors in dmesg? > > >
OK. This is what I did this time. First, I dd'd the drive, the first several gigs worth to be sure the partition table etc is gone. Second, I ran portprobe for it to see the partition was gone. It would still show up in /proc/partitions. I then used gdisk to create the partition. I might add, cgdisk would not run. It spit out a error and quit. Then I ran partprobe again. May have ran it twice. Then it showed up in /proc/partitons as it should. Then I used your advice and used mkfs -t ext4 and other options for label etc to format the partition. That gave me this: root@fireball / # time mkfs -v -t ext4 -m 0 -L 8tb-backup /dev/sde1 mke2fs 1.43.9 (8-Feb-2018) fs_types for mke2fs.conf resolution: 'ext4', 'big' Filesystem label=8tb-backup OS type: Linux Block size=4096 (log=2) Fragment size=4096 (log=2) Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks 244191232 inodes, 1953506385 blocks 0 blocks (0.00%) reserved for the super user First data block=0 Maximum filesystem blocks=4102029312 59617 block groups 32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group 4096 inodes per group Filesystem UUID: ebcd0ad4-f25f-466e-9b5c-acac33886df0 Superblock backups stored on blocks: 32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208, 4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968, 102400000, 214990848, 512000000, 550731776, 644972544, 1934917632 Allocating group tables: done Writing inode tables: done Creating journal (262144 blocks): done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done real 37m50.570s user 0m0.121s sys 0m1.639s root@fireball / # Before you freak out, I did move the drive to another port when I changed the cable. It moved from sdb to sde. I always confirm using smartctrl -i until I find the right device. After all that, I get this: 204,807,599 100% 120.79MB/s 0:00:01 (xfr#7946, ir-chk=3715/13065) 120,136,339 100% 77.20MB/s 0:00:01 (xfr#7947, ir-chk=3714/13065) 119,445,345 100% 94.38MB/s 0:00:01 (xfr#7948, ir-chk=3713/13065) 109,298,753 100% 100.81MB/s 0:00:01 (xfr#7949, ir-chk=3712/13065) 116,704,897 100% 82.38MB/s 0:00:01 (xfr#7950, ir-chk=3711/13065) 110,075,610 100% 92.49MB/s 0:00:01 (xfr#7951, ir-chk=3710/13065) 115,757,218 100% 106.46MB/s 0:00:01 (xfr#7952, ir-chk=3709/13065) 111,693,138 100% 128.49MB/s 0:00:00 (xfr#7953, ir-chk=3708/13065) 208,458,508 100% 56.93MB/s 0:00:03 (xfr#7954, ir-chk=3707/13065) 113,847,275 100% 88.92MB/s 0:00:01 (xfr#7955, ir-chk=3706/13065) 181,249,801 100% 79.22MB/s 0:00:02 (xfr#7956, ir-chk=3705/13065) 215,941,705 100% 146.99MB/s 0:00:01 (xfr#7957, ir-chk=3704/13065) Now I knew this wasn't the fastest drive out there. It puts a little more on living a long life at the expense of a little speed. However, this is MUCH MUCH better than I was getting. Since I have a good size drive now, I'm backing up /home and excluding things I don't care about like cache and files in the trash etc. It's a progressive thing. At this point, I don't know if it was the cable, me running partprobe or both that did this. It could also be running mkfs instead of mkfs.ext4 as well. Who knows. I'm just glad to have some SPEED. O_O Thanks much to all. Dale :-) :-)