On 05/22/2010 08:40 PM, Les Mikesell wrote: > Robert Nichols wrote: >> On 05/22/2010 07:39 PM, Robert Nichols wrote: >> I should add that the kernel normally will do I/O in multiples of its 4KB >> (typical) page size where possible, but I have no idea whether any effort >> is made to align those writes if the drive does not report a 4KB physical >> sector size, or whether it even makes sense to try beyond what the >> elevator algorithm does for coalescing sequential writes. >> >> I don't currently have any of these "enhanced format" drives, nor am I >> using RAID, so all I can report is the collected experience of others. > > Well, the form factor is certainly nice. I got a hot-swap carrier with 2 slots > that fits in a floppy bay and the drives themselves are tiny so it seemed ideal > for copies of data to go offsite. I just wish it would work... Even a dd at > the disk level seems slow so I'm not sure the writes are being aggregated even > if you ignore partitioning and offsets. Another thing to keep in mind is that the SATA spec. only requires the internal SATA connector to withstand 50 insertions. I picked up some nice acomdata (TM) eSATA housings for the drives (512-byte sectors, thankfully) I use for my offsite backup copies. The eSATA connector is spec-ed for 50,000 insertions. My laptop came with a warning about the life of that connector, and I found those ratings mentioned at http://www.serialata.org/technology/esata.asp . -- Bob Nichols "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address. Do NOT delete it.