This came up in my efforts to build a ZFS-booting sparc. But, I want to pull out some my question about disk partitioning into a separate discussion. I don't know of a parted mailing list, and I suspect this is specific to sun disk label anyway, so debian-sparc seemed the best place to ask.
I have a T5120 with 4 140GB disks. I want to put a md /boot on the first two, then use the remainder of the disks for other filesystem(s). However, I am getting what seems to me to be strange messages from parted, and am not sure how to get what I'm looking for. First, make a sun disk label. No problems. ---------------- (parted) mklabel sun Warning: The existing disk label on /dev/sda will be destroyed and all data on this disk will be lost. Do you want to continue? Yes/No? y (parted) p Model: SEAGATE ST914603SSUN146G (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 147GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: sun Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Flags (parted) ---------------- Then, make a 500MB partition. Again, I have no troubles ---------------- (parted) mkpart ext4 0 500m (parted) p Model: SEAGATE ST914603SSUN146G (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 147GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: sun Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Flags 1 0.00B 500MB 500MB ext4 (parted) ---------------- The problem comes when I try to add a partition after that: ---------------- (parted) mkpart ext4 500m 100% Warning: You requested a partition from 500MB to 147GB (sectors 976562..286739328). The closest location we can manage is 502MB to 147GB (sectors 979965..286728119). Is this still acceptable to you? Yes/No? yes Warning: The resulting partition is not properly aligned for best performance. Ignore/Cancel? cancel (parted) ---------------- The thing that concerns me most, is that it suggests it should _start_ this new parition on an odd-numbered sector. I can't immagine how that would ever make a properly aligned partition. At least, if any alignment outside of single-sector was required, which is clearly is based on the next message Below are a few more things I tried, including manually calculating 2048s alignment, and trying to tell parted to do that, which only makes it tell me it can't manage that. Whah? I would appreciate any pointers. - Chris ---------------- (parted) unit s (parted) p Model: SEAGATE ST914603SSUN146G (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 286739329s Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: sun Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Flags 1 0s 976895s 976896s ext4 (parted) mkpart ext4 976896s 25% Warning: You requested a partition from 976896s to 71684832s (sectors 976896..71684832). The closest location we can manage is 979965s to 71682029s (sectors 979965..71682029). Is this still acceptable to you? Yes/No? n (parted) mkpart ext4 980992s 25% Warning: You requested a partition from 980992s to 71684832s (sectors 980992..71684832). The closest location we can manage is 979965s to 71682029s (sectors 979965..71682029). Is this still acceptable to you? Yes/No? n (parted) mkpart ext4 980992s 71679999s Warning: You requested a partition from 980992s to 71679999s (sectors 980992..71679999). The closest location we can manage is 979965s to 71682029s (sectors 979965..71682029). Is this still acceptable to you? Yes/No? n (parted) mkpart ext4 980992s 71679999s Warning: You requested a partition from 980992s to 71679999s (sectors 980992..71679999). The closest location we can manage is 979965s to 71682029s (sectors 979965..71682029). Is this still acceptable to you? Yes/No? y Warning: The resulting partition is not properly aligned for best performance. Ignore/Cancel? i (parted) p Model: SEAGATE ST914603SSUN146G (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 286739329s Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: sun Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Flags 1 0s 976895s 976896s ext4 2 979965s 71682029s 70702065s ext4 (parted)