Theodore Tso wrote:

On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 12:29:22PM -0500, Matt Domsch wrote:
  

quoted

2) those that report a 512-byte sector size, but are really a
   4096-byte size, and the drive does the conversions and
   read/modify/write.  T10 and T13 are looking to add commands to
   expose this different underlying physical sector size so the OS
   could be aware of it.  This is primarily being driven to mitigate
   any problems that may happen with "legacy" OSs that are not aware
   of the difference.
    

As usual, the biggest problem will be "legacy" userspace.  For
example, most partition tools are still generating legacy partition
tables that look like this:

Disk /dev/sda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 38913 cylinders

Nr AF  Hd Sec  Cyl  Hd Sec  Cyl     Start      Size ID
 1 80   1   1    0 254  63  121         63    1959867 83
 2 00   0   1  122 254  63  619    1959930    8000370 82
 3 00   0   1  620 254  63 1023    9960300  615177045 05
 4 00   0   0    0   0   0    0          0          0 00
 5 00   1   1  620 254  63 1023         63  615176982 8e

Note the starting sector# for the first partition.....

						- Ted
  

If I remember correctly, the MS Vista new alignment for data partitions 
is on a 0 offset, 1MB aligned boundary. The support for 4096 byte 
sectors is only for data partitions (not boot).

Array vendors, who consume a fair amount of drives, are most likely more 
friendly to native 4k drives. The big fear from disk vendors is getting 
a wave of returns from Best Buy, etc when people go and plug in a new, 
native 4k drive into an old box....

ric