[syslinux] Advanced Format Technology

[Mortaza Doulaty]

Hi,

I'm ready to test the compatibility of SYSLINUX of drives with 4kb sector
size.

If needed, tell me what to do!

Thanks,
Mortaza

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 4:05 AM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:

> On 06/15/2010 03:58 PM, Gene Cumm wrote:
> > While researching another issue unrelated to Syslinux, I found some
> > mildly disturbing news that affects Syslinux.  As HPA stated back on
> > 2009-06-04, hard drive manufacturers are pushing towards a 4096B
> > (4kiB; 4k) native sector size.  They're calling it "Advanced Format
> > Technology".  It appears that WD (Western Digital; WDC) is the first
> > with some products being released back in December and that Seagate
> > just recently "jumped on the bandwagon".
> >
> > Seeing as HPA's mention of the 4kiB sector back on 2009-06-04 was the
> > only mention I've seen and "Advanced Format" can't be seen anywhere in
> > the list archives, I felt it worthwhile to mention "it's here", at
> > least to some extent.
> >
> > In WD's whitepaper (PDF available by selecting language at
> > http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/?id=216&type=87), it does,
> > however, talk about performing in-drive emulation from 512B to 4096B
> > sectors and that they have a utility
> > (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/advancedformat/) to "realign" for
> > "performance" (still can't be certain what this really means;
> > sacrifice 1/64 capacity by packing (63) 512B sectors on (8) 4096B
> > sectors?).
> >
> > Has this been discussed at all off-list (ie IRC)?  With the in-drive
> > emulation, it seems like it either won't affect anything or it won't
> > affect it for now.
> >
>
> Logical sector size (as opposed to physcial sector size) is likely to
> remain at 512 for at least some time.  "Advanced Format" is, ahem, at
> the very best a euphemism.
>
> Realigning for performance just means changing the partitions to all be
> on 4K boundaries, which is a good thing; for FAT it might also pad some
> of the internal data structures to make sure the clusters are also aligned.
>
>        -hpa
>
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