On 5/24/2010 6:56 AM, Robert Nichols wrote: > >> >> The trayless internal hotswap enclosures claim to be good for 10,000+ insertions >> and I'm using larger ones for the desktop drives I had been using without any >> problems. I have seen some postings to the effect that I need a newer kernel >> to recognize the 4k sectors besides doing the partition alignment. Maybe I can >> boot the RHEL 6 beta or a fedora iso and see if they are faster. > > Sounds good, unless that 10,000 insertion spec is predicated on spreading > the usage among 200 drives such that no individual drives has more than > 50 insertions. ;-( > > BTW, I got carried away typing zeros in that spec. for the eSATA connector. > The right number is 5,000 insertions, not 50,000. > > If you want a good write-up on what the kernel developers have to contend > with to handle these 4KiB sector sizes, see > https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_4_KiB_sector_issues > > For those with a strong stomach for such things, a nice historical > perspective on the horrors of ever-increasing drive sizes can be found > at http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/Large-Disk.html . Just be sure to > keep the 2004 date in mind when it mentions "recent kernels." I booted a RHEL6 beta DVD in rescue mode, but it wasn't any better. That version of fdisk does show: Logical/Physical Sector size 512 bytes though, so it's probably hopeless. Oddly, that version of fdisk wouldn't let me move the beginning back below 63 either - but I did that with the 5.x fdisk. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com