From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Theodore Tso Subject: Re: tools support for non-512 byte sector sizes Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:45:51 -0400 Message-ID: <20080730184551.GB5347@mit.edu> References: <488F524F.6020905@redhat.com> <20080729182611.GB24924@parisc-linux.org> <1217356645.6103.48.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20080730135147.GA4513@auslistsprd01.us.dell.com> <87zlnzb8ce.fsf@rho.meyering.net> <20080730172922.GA20191@auslistsprd01.us.dell.com> <20080730181351.GA5347@mit.edu> <4890B2BC.10808@redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4890B2BC.10808@redhat.com> Sender: linux-ide-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Ric Wheeler Cc: Matt Domsch , Jim Meyering , "Martin K. Petersen" , James Bottomley , Matthew Wilcox , linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org, linux-ide@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Jeff Garzik List-Id: linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 02:28:12PM -0400, Ric Wheeler wrote: > If I remember correctly, the MS Vista new alignment for data partitions > is on a 0 offset, 1MB aligned boundary. The support for 4096 byte > sectors is only for data partitions (not boot). > > Array vendors, who consume a fair amount of drives, are most likely more > friendly to native 4k drives. The big fear from disk vendors is getting > a wave of returns from Best Buy, etc when people go and plug in a new, > native 4k drive into an old box.... Or a new box running XP, either via the Dell "upgrade to XP" program, or from a corporate I/T load[1]. :-) [1] http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/23/intel-dumps-vista More to the point for Linux, are *our* partition table programs (i.e., fdisk, cfdisk, et. al) fixed with better defaults in upstream, and what are the upcoming enterprise distributions going to ship with? Since that's what a large number of Linux customers will end up using for the next 3-5 years.... - Ted