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I've been made aware of an interesting wrinkle with regard to hard disk drives which have native sector sizes greater than 512 bytes.
The problem is that someone is proposing to implement the sectors in such a manner that asking for a 1024 bytes at block 0 actually causes a mis-aligned operation. To compound the issue, the drive has no means of indicating whether it is an "odd" drive or an "even" drive.
I propose that all ambiguity be eliminated and that it be prohibited to implement a drive in such a manner that the natural blocks be formatted in such a way that a read or write operation in the natural size of the sectors at any natural multiple of the natural sector size from block zero ALWAYS be in alignment with the physical implementation of the drive. So-called "odd alignments" should be prohibited.
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--------------------- I make stuff go. ---------------------
Larry Barras Apple Computer Inc. 1 Infinite Loop MS: 306-2TC Cupertino, CA 95014 (408) 974-3220
