On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Krunal Desai <mov...@gmail.com> wrote: > The Seagate datasheet for those parts report 512-byte sectors. What is > the deal with the ST32000542AS: native 512-byte sectors, native > 4k-byte sector with selectable emulation, or native 4k-byte sectors > with 512-byte sector emulation always on?
Disregard; if I understand correctly, Seagate has proprietary "SmartAlign" tech that takes care of 4K sectors (see links below). I can't seem to find any real whitepaper style explanation of the method though, but I assume it either: 1. does a really good job of 512-byte emulation that results in little to no performance degradation (http://consumer.media.seagate.com/2010/06/the-digital-den/advanced-format-drives-with-smartalign/ references "test data") 2. "dynamically" looks to see if it even needs to do anything; if the host OS is sending it requests that all 4k-aware/aligned, all is well. Newegg has these on sale today for $69.99; sadly the limit is 2. I think I'll pick two up and use them for some tests and stock up on this model drive. Though, the power-on hours count seems rather "low" for me...8760 hours, or just 1 year of 24/7 operation. I may have to revisit power management in OpenSolaris (or upgrade to OpenIndiana) to see if my disks are spinning down when they are supposed too. Links: http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=advanced-format-migration-to-4k-tpc&vgnextoid=746f43fce2489210VgnVCM1000001a48090aRCRD http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/tp615_smartalign_for_af_4k.pdf _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
