Re: ATA support for 4k sector size

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 12/10/2009 11:05 PM, James Andrewartha wrote:
> Martin K. Petersen wrote:
>>>>>>> "Matthew" == Matthew Wilcox <matthew@xxxxxx> writes:
>>
>> Matthew> Lowest aligned logical block address=0
>>
>> Matthew> This disagrees with Martin's assertion.
>>
>> The original roadmap was to transition to 4KB sectors in 2006,
>> coinciding with the Vista release.
>>
>> Given how long this has taken (we're now talking ~2011 for GA) it may
>> very well be that the alignment knobs will be unused because everybody
>> will be using Vista or 7 by then.
> 
> The plan does seem to have changed - WD's shipping 4k sector drives that
> are sane and require a drive jumper or tool for WinXP and old cloning
> utilities.
> 
> http://techreport.com/discussions.x/18115
> http://wdc.com/en/products/advancedformat/
> http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/whitepapers/en/2579-771430-A00.pdf
> 

Even more important, the alignment can be changed as opposed to being
fixed for the manufacture of the disk.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

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