Re: Any way in LVM to deal with 512e vs 4Kn physical devices?

[Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net>]

Hi,

On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 10:30:36PM +0300, Ilia Zykov wrote:
> Sorry, I could be wrong, but I was encountered this problem a long time ago.
> You cannot transfer ext4 from a device with a phys sector 512 bite to a
> device with phys 4k sector device.

I have read several other accounts which agree with this. I will
test just directly putting an ext4 fs on an LV that's backed by 512e
drives and then copying an image of that to an LV that is backed by
4Kn drives, just to see what happens, though.

> In datasheet for you model tells:
> * 512e models can be converted to 4Kn format and
> vice versa.
> I don't understand what is it mean, but maybe you can try convert to 512e if
> possible.

I think it means that using hdparm to set its sector size to 512 is
possible, though that would invalidate all the data currently on
the drive (which is fine in this case).

There would of course also be vendor tools to change the sector
size, but I think hdparm should work if the data sheet says the
procedure is possible.

I'll let you know!

Thanks,
Andy