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Mektub

Member

From: Lisbon /Portugal

Registered: 2008-01-02

Posts: 647

Linux Not Fully Prepared for 4096-Byte Sector Hard Drives ?

Well, I hijacked the subject of this article:

http://tinyurl.com/yffz5wf

I bought a Samsung S1 mini USB external disk (http://tinyurl.com/yae42rj),
and it does come with 4096-Byte sectors.

Strangely, apart from the article above I didn't find many mentions of this problem while doing some goggling.

Above disk comes formatted in NTFS, and I would like to repartition and reformat it.

But the mentioned article makes me wonder, does any of you have any experience with 4096-Byte Sector Hard Drives ?

fdisk /dev/sdd followed buy a 'p' shows:

Note: sector size is 4096 (not 512)

Disk /dev/sdd: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3800 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 4096 = 65802240 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc7fcf1c7

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdd1               1        3800   244187748    7  HPFS/NTFS

I didn't venture further.

parted --align optimal followed by a 'print' shows:

Model: Samsung S1 Mini (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdd: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start  End    Size   Type     File system  Flags
1      258kB  250GB  250GB  primary

gparted, which is anyhow just a front end for parted, ignores the disk, this is described in their homepage as being
on purpose, they say the code to handle 4096-Byte Sectors is buggy.

Any comments, experiences on this ?

Mektub

Last edited by Mektub (2010-02-28 14:11:18)

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Mektub

Member

From: Lisbon /Portugal

Registered: 2008-01-02

Posts: 647

Re: Linux Not Fully Prepared for 4096-Byte Sector Hard Drives ?

I did repartition a Samsung 4096-Byte sectors S1 disk into a ext3 partition (was ntfs). I didn't like to see parted messages like:

Warning: Device /dev/sdd has a logical sector size of 4096.  Not all parts of GNU Parted support this at the
moment, and the working code is HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL.

and similar ones from fdisk.

I followed some advice I found on the net, f.e.:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1407098

I suppose that as people start to buy 4096-Byte sectors disks, more feedback will be available.

Mektub

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sand_man

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-06-10

Posts: 2,164

Re: Linux Not Fully Prepared for 4096-Byte Sector Hard Drives ?

I did read somewhere recently that fdisk and gparted are working on it.
I just wish I could remember where...

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CountDuckula

Member

Registered: 2010-02-28

Posts: 151

Re: Linux Not Fully Prepared for 4096-Byte Sector Hard Drives ?

I did read somewhere recently that fdisk and gparted are working on it.
I just wish I could remember where...

Was it this article? - makes a mention of using parted --align optimal

sand_man

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-06-10

Posts: 2,164

Re: Linux Not Fully Prepared for 4096-Byte Sector Hard Drives ?

I did read somewhere recently that fdisk and gparted are working on it.
I just wish I could remember where...

Was it this article? - makes a mention of using parted --align optimal

Yes that looks familiar.

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Mektub

Member

From: Lisbon /Portugal

Registered: 2008-01-02

Posts: 647

Re: Linux Not Fully Prepared for 4096-Byte Sector Hard Drives ?

I did use the 'parted --align optimal' option. Still it kept (and keeps) telling me that the ext3 partition is not aligned, even
after trying several examples, multiples of 4, 8, 16, 64, whatever, this among scary messages like 'code is HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL'.

But then again, what do i know.

Mektub

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lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: Linux Not Fully Prepared for 4096-Byte Sector Hard Drives ?

Posted this article but most people didn't recognize the impact.  It certainly looks like XP is in the hot seat.

No mention of linux in the mix but as I surmised, there is an impact and your post recognizes it.  I am certain it will impact those users with XP dual boot even though those who commented on the posting didn't acknowledge that possibility.

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=93145

The article is thorough in analysis of the impact.

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Mektub

Member

From: Lisbon /Portugal

Registered: 2008-01-02

Posts: 647

Re: Linux Not Fully Prepared for 4096-Byte Sector Hard Drives ?

This thread is a bit old but I think it is worth to mention the availability of gparted 0.6.0.1 in Extra.

From Gparted news (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/news.php):

GParted News
18 June 2010 : GParted 0.6.0

The GParted team is proud to announce this release brings support for devices with sector sizes greater than 512 bytes.

For the last three decades, 512 byte sector sizes have been the norm and many tools, including GParted, were hard coded to assume this sector size.

Also included in this release are bug fixes, and language translation updates.

Key changes include:

    * Add support for devices with sector sizes > 512 bytes
    * Add alignment option to align to MiB
    * Set _default_ alignment to align to MiB

Known issues:
- When used with libparted versions 2.3 and lower on devices with sector sizes > 512 bytes:

    * hfs/hfs+: used/unused space not detected
    * hfs/hfs+: shrink file system not available

See the Release Notes for more details.

Curtis

Mektub

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