From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1S4aMn-0005P2-6D for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:02:29 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 12EC8E06EE; Mon, 5 Mar 2012 16:02:16 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mx.virtyou.com (mx.virtyou.com [178.33.32.244]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BEE09E055C for ; Mon, 5 Mar 2012 16:01:00 +0000 (UTC) Received: from weird.wonkology.org (xdsl-84-44-209-175.netcologne.de [84.44.209.175]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx.virtyou.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 6D19ADC054 for ; Mon, 5 Mar 2012 17:00:59 +0100 (CET) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2012 17:00:57 +0100 From: Alex Schuster To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo on a Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook Message-ID: <20120305170057.7c47b2a4@weird.wonkology.org> In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.8.0 (GTK+ 2.24.10; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Archives-Salt: 164eaaf0-cd80-4efa-9cb4-e1f2069d6b1a X-Archives-Hash: 24a204969d976bdbaf2889e0a8ab7b2f Grant writes: > > The performance is only impacted if the sector size is something other > > =A0than 512 bytes. The newer 4K sector size used by some higher density > > drives requires that you start partitions on a sector boundary or they > > will perform badly. There isn't an actually performance need to > > actually start on 2048 but the fdisk-type developer folks are doing > > that to be more compatible with newer Windows installations. >=20 > All my drives says this from fdisk: >=20 > Units =3D sectors of 1 * 512 =3D 512 bytes > Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes > I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Neither fdisk nor hdparm seem to get the correct sector size, at least not always. That's what I read somewhere (and not only once), and it's true for my own 2TB drive which I know to have a 4K sector size. I'd say you have to look up the specs on the vendor's web size to be sure. > So it doesn't matter where the first partition starts? If you have 4K sectors (and not a Seagate drive with SmartAlign [*]), it does. BTW, here's some benchmarks I just stumbled upon: http://hothardware.com/Articles/WDs-1TB-Caviar-Green-w-Advanced-Format-Wind= ows-XP-Users-Pay-Attention/?page=3D2 [*] I don't want to sound like I'm advertising for Seagate here, but at least it seems that with SmartAlign the performance impact will be much less, so it might not be worth the trouble of re-partitioning drives that are already being used. Wonko