[rhelv6-beta-list] Can RHEL6 installer align the disk partitionwith 4k-sector or raid stripe size?

[Jeff Macfarland]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: rhelv6-beta-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:rhelv6-beta-list-
> bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Bryan J Smith
> Sent: Friday, June 11, 2010 12:52 PM
> To: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (Santiago) Beta releases
> discussionmailing-list
> Subject: Re: [rhelv6-beta-list] Can RHEL6 installer align the disk
> partitionwith 4k-sector or raid stripe size?
> 
> Are we sure it works for 2003?  2003 is still NT5.1 at the core.
> I would assume (and I could be completely wrong) that NT 6 is
> required (Vista, 2008, 7).


2003 does not auto align to 1M boundaries. 2008/vista/7 were the first.

> 
> --
> Bryan J Smith - mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/bjsmith
> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve Bonneville <sbonnevi at redhat.com>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:41:14
> To: <rhelv6-beta-list at redhat.com>
> Subject: Re: [rhelv6-beta-list] Can RHEL6 installer align the disk
> partition
>  with 4k-sector or raid stripe size?
> 
> 
> Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> > > When I did the install, I *did* have the installer remove all
> existing
> > > partitions on the disk, so that could have fixed the old partition
> table.
> > > If I had not done that, it wouldn't surprise me to see /dev/sda1
> still
> > > start at LBA 63 (from the previous RHEL 5 installation).
> >
> > Removing the old partition table does _not_ necessarily change the
> > _existing_ geometry.  I'm sure this is done for "safety" with how
> > the system might be presenting the geometry, the same geometry is
> > re-used.  I'd bet on it.  One can force Anaconda to use a geometry
> > though, which would solve the issue.
> >
> > Best yet is to use the disk vendor's tool.  ;)
> >
> > As far as documentation on the matter, these are issues with the PC
> and
> > other OSes.  These are not Linux details.  The myriad of issues that
> > have come about from endless geometry assumptions/presentations by
> both
> > PC firmware (let alone BIOS Int13h Disk Services itself), and
> Windows,
> > is a long history of agony and pain.
> 
> Best as I understand it, the new alignment basically does what recent
> versions of Windows does, which is to ignore geometry and use LBAs to
> just align to the sector size, with a +1M offset to the start of the
> first partition.  We don't worry about breaking on cylinder boundaries
> anymore, we just worry about breaking on the physical sector boundary.
> 
> That breaks compatibility with older operating systems (DOS, Windows
> 98,
> Windows 2000) but my understanding is 2003/2008/Vista/7 all handle this
> the same way.
> 
> And yeah, it's complex.  The links posted earlier are useful, the ugly
> long story is at
> 
> https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_4_KiB_sector_issues
> 
> While discussion of how to get good results with fdisk is at
> 
> http://karelzak.blogspot.com/2010/05/4096-byte-sector-hard-drives.html
> 
> > Only GPT will put an end to this suffering legacy.  ;)
> 
> Heh.
> 
>   -- Steve
> 
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