Can the logical sector size be set on newer HDD/SSDs?
I believe this is the same question as Optimizing logical sector size for physical sector size 4096 HDD but that question never got an accepted answer and the existing answers dance around the core question.
If I have an advanced format HDD/SSD that I know has a physical sector size of 4K, AND I know that all the hardware/software on my system can handle a minimum I/O size of 4K, AND I'm OK with the marginal loss of free space for files smaller than 4K, THEN is there a way for me to set it up so that all components of the system view that device has having both a logical and physical sector size of 4K?
I expect a solid answer including the following information:
What information does the disk reports to the kernel?
Does the kernel unconditionally and truthfully reports that info via
/sysor whether it can be made to conditionally adjust the values?Whether components other than the kernel might directly interact
with the hardware and discover this information.
linux-kernel hard-disk block-device
edited Dec 19 '18 at 11:13
炸鱼薯条德里克
404114
asked May 24 '17 at 2:05
Huckle
349417
add a comment |
I believe this is the same question as Optimizing logical sector size for physical sector size 4096 HDD but that question never got an accepted answer and the existing answers dance around the core question.
If I have an advanced format HDD/SSD that I know has a physical sector size of 4K, AND I know that all the hardware/software on my system can handle a minimum I/O size of 4K, AND I'm OK with the marginal loss of free space for files smaller than 4K, THEN is there a way for me to set it up so that all components of the system view that device has having both a logical and physical sector size of 4K?
I expect a solid answer including the following information:
What information does the disk reports to the kernel?
Does the kernel unconditionally and truthfully reports that info via
/sysor whether it can be made to conditionally adjust the values?Whether components other than the kernel might directly interact
with the hardware and discover this information.
linux-kernel hard-disk block-device
edited Dec 19 '18 at 11:13
炸鱼薯条德里克
404114
asked May 24 '17 at 2:05
Huckle
349417
1
You made a long list of conditions for you to accept an answer. Now please describe what problem are you actually trying to solve, and what are your criteria for deciding whether said problem is solved on not in a given situation. In particular, do you have any numbers to back up your claims?
– Satō Katsura
May 24 '17 at 4:18
The problem is of course alignment, which I know the canonical solution for. But the canonical solution is hard to verify that it was applied correctly. Checking alignment when you have several disks in RAID, over which you have LUKS encryption, over which you have a filesystem can be tedious if not hard. A simple way to avoid that is to ensure there is only one option: 4k.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:16
add a comment |
I believe this is the same question as Optimizing logical sector size for physical sector size 4096 HDD but that question never got an accepted answer and the existing answers dance around the core question.
If I have an advanced format HDD/SSD that I know has a physical sector size of 4K, AND I know that all the hardware/software on my system can handle a minimum I/O size of 4K, AND I'm OK with the marginal loss of free space for files smaller than 4K, THEN is there a way for me to set it up so that all components of the system view that device has having both a logical and physical sector size of 4K?
I expect a solid answer including the following information:
What information does the disk reports to the kernel?
Does the kernel unconditionally and truthfully reports that info via
/sysor whether it can be made to conditionally adjust the values?Whether components other than the kernel might directly interact
with the hardware and discover this information.
linux-kernel hard-disk block-device
edited Dec 19 '18 at 11:13
炸鱼薯条德里克
404114
asked May 24 '17 at 2:05
Huckle
349417
I believe this is the same question as Optimizing logical sector size for physical sector size 4096 HDD but that question never got an accepted answer and the existing answers dance around the core question.
If I have an advanced format HDD/SSD that I know has a physical sector size of 4K, AND I know that all the hardware/software on my system can handle a minimum I/O size of 4K, AND I'm OK with the marginal loss of free space for files smaller than 4K, THEN is there a way for me to set it up so that all components of the system view that device has having both a logical and physical sector size of 4K?
I expect a solid answer including the following information:
What information does the disk reports to the kernel?
Does the kernel unconditionally and truthfully reports that info via
/sysor whether it can be made to conditionally adjust the values?Whether components other than the kernel might directly interact
with the hardware and discover this information.
linux-kernel hard-disk block-device
linux-kernel hard-disk block-device
edited Dec 19 '18 at 11:13
炸鱼薯条德里克
404114
asked May 24 '17 at 2:05
Huckle
349417
edited Dec 19 '18 at 11:13
炸鱼薯条德里克
404114
asked May 24 '17 at 2:05
Huckle
349417
edited Dec 19 '18 at 11:13
炸鱼薯条德里克
404114
edited Dec 19 '18 at 11:13
炸鱼薯条德里克
404114
edited Dec 19 '18 at 11:13
炸鱼薯条德里克
404114
404114
asked May 24 '17 at 2:05
Huckle
349417
asked May 24 '17 at 2:05
Huckle
349417
asked May 24 '17 at 2:05
Huckle
349417
349417
1
You made a long list of conditions for you to accept an answer. Now please describe what problem are you actually trying to solve, and what are your criteria for deciding whether said problem is solved on not in a given situation. In particular, do you have any numbers to back up your claims?
– Satō Katsura
May 24 '17 at 4:18
The problem is of course alignment, which I know the canonical solution for. But the canonical solution is hard to verify that it was applied correctly. Checking alignment when you have several disks in RAID, over which you have LUKS encryption, over which you have a filesystem can be tedious if not hard. A simple way to avoid that is to ensure there is only one option: 4k.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:16
add a comment |
1
You made a long list of conditions for you to accept an answer. Now please describe what problem are you actually trying to solve, and what are your criteria for deciding whether said problem is solved on not in a given situation. In particular, do you have any numbers to back up your claims?
– Satō Katsura
May 24 '17 at 4:18
The problem is of course alignment, which I know the canonical solution for. But the canonical solution is hard to verify that it was applied correctly. Checking alignment when you have several disks in RAID, over which you have LUKS encryption, over which you have a filesystem can be tedious if not hard. A simple way to avoid that is to ensure there is only one option: 4k.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:16
1
1
You made a long list of conditions for you to accept an answer. Now please describe what problem are you actually trying to solve, and what are your criteria for deciding whether said problem is solved on not in a given situation. In particular, do you have any numbers to back up your claims?
– Satō Katsura
May 24 '17 at 4:18
You made a long list of conditions for you to accept an answer. Now please describe what problem are you actually trying to solve, and what are your criteria for deciding whether said problem is solved on not in a given situation. In particular, do you have any numbers to back up your claims?
– Satō Katsura
May 24 '17 at 4:18
The problem is of course alignment, which I know the canonical solution for. But the canonical solution is hard to verify that it was applied correctly. Checking alignment when you have several disks in RAID, over which you have LUKS encryption, over which you have a filesystem can be tedious if not hard. A simple way to avoid that is to ensure there is only one option: 4k.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:16
The problem is of course alignment, which I know the canonical solution for. But the canonical solution is hard to verify that it was applied correctly. Checking alignment when you have several disks in RAID, over which you have LUKS encryption, over which you have a filesystem can be tedious if not hard. A simple way to avoid that is to ensure there is only one option: 4k.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:16
add a comment |
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
It's not the kernel you need to patch for #1, it's the hard drive you will have to tell to both report and use a logical sector size of 4k.
On the other hand, if (as you say) all your software is prepared for a logical sector size of 4k, what difference does the sector size make? If all your reads and writes are multiples of 4k and are neatly aligned, what advantage do you gain from issuing a read command to the drive reading
- 25 blocks starting from block 155, vs.
- 200 blocks starting from block 1240?
answered May 24 '17 at 11:18
Johan Myréen
7,44011524
It's about ease of verification. It's tedious to check alignment and block sizes for many layers of stack blocked devices and filesystems to make sure they are all aligned and of optimal size. If you can eliminate all the options at the source you've reduced the chances of something going wrong.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:19
add a comment |
I believe that some WD hard drives have a jumper you can set to switch the logical sector size to 4k, but there is really no need to do so since all recent software understands that the physical sector size is 4k and with automatically handle the correct alignment. For this reason, they may have phased out the jumper setting.
answered May 25 '17 at 3:01
psusi
13.5k22439
add a comment |
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2 Answers
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active
oldest
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2 Answers
2
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oldest
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It's not the kernel you need to patch for #1, it's the hard drive you will have to tell to both report and use a logical sector size of 4k.
On the other hand, if (as you say) all your software is prepared for a logical sector size of 4k, what difference does the sector size make? If all your reads and writes are multiples of 4k and are neatly aligned, what advantage do you gain from issuing a read command to the drive reading
- 25 blocks starting from block 155, vs.
- 200 blocks starting from block 1240?
answered May 24 '17 at 11:18
Johan Myréen
7,44011524
It's about ease of verification. It's tedious to check alignment and block sizes for many layers of stack blocked devices and filesystems to make sure they are all aligned and of optimal size. If you can eliminate all the options at the source you've reduced the chances of something going wrong.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:19
add a comment |
It's not the kernel you need to patch for #1, it's the hard drive you will have to tell to both report and use a logical sector size of 4k.
On the other hand, if (as you say) all your software is prepared for a logical sector size of 4k, what difference does the sector size make? If all your reads and writes are multiples of 4k and are neatly aligned, what advantage do you gain from issuing a read command to the drive reading
- 25 blocks starting from block 155, vs.
- 200 blocks starting from block 1240?
answered May 24 '17 at 11:18
Johan Myréen
7,44011524
It's about ease of verification. It's tedious to check alignment and block sizes for many layers of stack blocked devices and filesystems to make sure they are all aligned and of optimal size. If you can eliminate all the options at the source you've reduced the chances of something going wrong.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:19
add a comment |
It's not the kernel you need to patch for #1, it's the hard drive you will have to tell to both report and use a logical sector size of 4k.
On the other hand, if (as you say) all your software is prepared for a logical sector size of 4k, what difference does the sector size make? If all your reads and writes are multiples of 4k and are neatly aligned, what advantage do you gain from issuing a read command to the drive reading
- 25 blocks starting from block 155, vs.
- 200 blocks starting from block 1240?
answered May 24 '17 at 11:18
Johan Myréen
7,44011524
It's not the kernel you need to patch for #1, it's the hard drive you will have to tell to both report and use a logical sector size of 4k.
On the other hand, if (as you say) all your software is prepared for a logical sector size of 4k, what difference does the sector size make? If all your reads and writes are multiples of 4k and are neatly aligned, what advantage do you gain from issuing a read command to the drive reading
- 25 blocks starting from block 155, vs.
- 200 blocks starting from block 1240?
answered May 24 '17 at 11:18
Johan Myréen
7,44011524
edited May 24 '17 at 21:54
answered May 24 '17 at 11:18
Johan Myréen
7,44011524
answered May 24 '17 at 11:18
Johan Myréen
7,44011524
answered May 24 '17 at 11:18
Johan Myréen
7,44011524
7,44011524
It's about ease of verification. It's tedious to check alignment and block sizes for many layers of stack blocked devices and filesystems to make sure they are all aligned and of optimal size. If you can eliminate all the options at the source you've reduced the chances of something going wrong.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:19
add a comment |
It's about ease of verification. It's tedious to check alignment and block sizes for many layers of stack blocked devices and filesystems to make sure they are all aligned and of optimal size. If you can eliminate all the options at the source you've reduced the chances of something going wrong.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:19
It's about ease of verification. It's tedious to check alignment and block sizes for many layers of stack blocked devices and filesystems to make sure they are all aligned and of optimal size. If you can eliminate all the options at the source you've reduced the chances of something going wrong.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:19
It's about ease of verification. It's tedious to check alignment and block sizes for many layers of stack blocked devices and filesystems to make sure they are all aligned and of optimal size. If you can eliminate all the options at the source you've reduced the chances of something going wrong.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:19
add a comment |
I believe that some WD hard drives have a jumper you can set to switch the logical sector size to 4k, but there is really no need to do so since all recent software understands that the physical sector size is 4k and with automatically handle the correct alignment. For this reason, they may have phased out the jumper setting.
answered May 25 '17 at 3:01
psusi
13.5k22439
add a comment |
I believe that some WD hard drives have a jumper you can set to switch the logical sector size to 4k, but there is really no need to do so since all recent software understands that the physical sector size is 4k and with automatically handle the correct alignment. For this reason, they may have phased out the jumper setting.
answered May 25 '17 at 3:01
psusi
13.5k22439
add a comment |
I believe that some WD hard drives have a jumper you can set to switch the logical sector size to 4k, but there is really no need to do so since all recent software understands that the physical sector size is 4k and with automatically handle the correct alignment. For this reason, they may have phased out the jumper setting.
answered May 25 '17 at 3:01
psusi
13.5k22439
I believe that some WD hard drives have a jumper you can set to switch the logical sector size to 4k, but there is really no need to do so since all recent software understands that the physical sector size is 4k and with automatically handle the correct alignment. For this reason, they may have phased out the jumper setting.
answered May 25 '17 at 3:01
psusi
13.5k22439
answered May 25 '17 at 3:01
psusi
13.5k22439
answered May 25 '17 at 3:01
psusi
13.5k22439
answered May 25 '17 at 3:01
psusi
13.5k22439
13.5k22439
add a comment |
add a comment |
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1
You made a long list of conditions for you to accept an answer. Now please describe what problem are you actually trying to solve, and what are your criteria for deciding whether said problem is solved on not in a given situation. In particular, do you have any numbers to back up your claims?
– Satō Katsura
May 24 '17 at 4:18
The problem is of course alignment, which I know the canonical solution for. But the canonical solution is hard to verify that it was applied correctly. Checking alignment when you have several disks in RAID, over which you have LUKS encryption, over which you have a filesystem can be tedious if not hard. A simple way to avoid that is to ensure there is only one option: 4k.
– Huckle
May 24 '17 at 20:16