On Sat, 2010-04-24 at 07:17 -0400, Sean Dague wrote: > > http://www.osnews.com/story/22872/Linux_Not_Fully_Prepared_for_4096-Byte_Sector_Hard_Drives > is probably the most useful bit I've found around it. > > The synopsis: Linux will do 4k blocks fine (the entire os is pretty much > 4k aligned already), but the partitioning tools don't naturally 4k > align. If you force the partitions to start on a 4k boundary... life is > good. If you don't, it can be an extreme (3x) performance hit. > > -Sean > Here's an article from Linux Weekly News, which, along with its links, appears to be a really comprehensive coverage of the topic. I browsed the article when it first appeared. I did not re-read it now to see if it addresses the specific issues raised in this thread.
http://lwn.net/Articles/377895/ 4K-sector drives and Linux (First paragraph of article): "Almost exactly one year ago, LWN examined the problem of 4K-sector drives and the reasons for their existence. In short, going to 4KB physical sectors allows drive manufacturers to increase storage density, always welcome in that competitive market. Recently, there have been a number of reports that Linux is not ready to work with these drives; kernel developer Tejun Heo even posted an extensive, worth-reading summary stating that "4 KiB logical sector support is broken in both the kernel and partitioners." As the subsequent discussion revealed, though, the truth of the matter is that we're not quite that badly prepared." _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium May 5 - Crack and LLVM Jun 2 - Android Jul 7 - Patent Absurdity - The Movie
