Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo on a Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook

[Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com>]

>> [snip]
>>>> 1. fdisk won't let me specify a start block before 2048 even though I
>>>> deleted all partitions.
>>>>
>>>
>>> That's normal. It's a long story, but Windows Vista and Windows 7 expects
>>> the first partition to start at sector 2048.
>>>
>>> You can force a lower number by toggling "DOS compatibility"; this should
>>> let you start the first partition as low as sector 63.
>>>
>>> HOWEVER, make sure that all partitions begin at multiples of 8 (e.g., 64,
>>> 72, 80, and so on); this will save you a lot of grief if it happens that the
>>> hard disk you're using has 4KiB-sectors.
>>
>> I just looked up the start block for my other systems and they're all
>> on 63.  Is performance impacted on all of these systems since they
>> aren't started on 64?
>>
>> - Grant
>>
>
> The performance is only impacted if the sector size is something other
>  than 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.

All my drives says this from fdisk:

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

So it doesn't matter where the first partition starts?

- Grant