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James1138

Member

Registered: 2018-09-27

Posts: 45  

What is the maximum USB capacity Devuan can use?

I am planning to backup my data (docs, music, video, etc.) offline using USB drives since I travel quite a bit nowadays and do not always have access to internet/cloud storage and rather not carry bulky extra external SSD (bulky compared to USB drives in terms of weight and size).

So far I found no problem with generic 128 gb drives - but wondered what is the maximum capacity (256gb, 512gb)?

On a related note - other that GPARTED or GNOME Disk Manager... any suggestions on any other software that just format USB?

Thanks in advance.
James
Indiana

alexkemp

Member

Registered: 2018-05-14

Posts: 357  

Re: What is the maximum USB capacity Devuan can use?

I've got two drives that are USB-connected HDD:

1. Seagate 2TB portable
   (this is formatted using standard Linux utilities to (so-called) FAT64 (HPFS/NTFS/exFAT: max 2TB))

2. WD (Western Digital) 4TB portable ("My Passport")
   (this is native M$ format ("Microsoft basic data") and I cannot find a linux utility that can format and/or repair it to it's current state)

The advantage of the former is that it is ubiquitous across many different OS. As an example, my ancient Samsung TV can read & play movies from (1), but not (2).

The advantage of (2) is that it can store above the 2TB threshold. Also, astonishing that I may need it to. I left the disk in it's supplied format since that can be read by more OS than a native Linux format.

As long as you have a 64-bit cpu then (as I understand it) either disk can be read up to the max of the cpu (which I cannot recall as I sit here, but much, much more than 4TB).

Camtaf

Member

Registered: 2019-11-19

Posts: 436  

Re: What is the maximum USB capacity Devuan can use?

If you don't want to carry a 2.5" USB disk drive, you might like to try using an M2 SSD in an external USB case (approx 3.75" x 1.5" x 0.25") & more reliable than a pendrive.

With regards to setting up disks, I just use fdisk on the command line.

Good to know that you have had good experiences with generic 128GB pendrives, as I have just ordered 3x to try out with/on my thin client desktops.

Last edited by Camtaf (2023-04-28 08:27:56)