4K-sector drives and Linux [LWN.net]

4K-sector drives and Linux

Posted Mar 11, 2010 19:41 UTC (Thu) by cmccabe (guest, #60281)
In reply to: 4K-sector drives and Linux by kjp
Parent article: 4K-sector drives and Linux

> I don't understand the problem with GPT.

I agree with you. We have to move to GPT soon anyway, unless you think that 2 TB should be enough for anyone.

Rather than fooling with this C/H/S nonsense, we should just fix BIOSes and such so that they can use the new format.

> And does it fix XP as well?

The 32 bit version of Windows XP can only work with MBRs, never GPTs. There is some weird way that you can have both an MBR and a GPT on your disk, but it looks ugly... very ugly. And it still doesn't let you break the 2 TB limit under XP.

On the other hand, the 64-bit version of Windows XP can read and write GPT partitions, but can't boot from them.

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4K-sector drives and Linux

Posted Mar 12, 2010 21:46 UTC (Fri) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]

Ok, I figured out that a 4k-sector drive with a traditional MBR can be up to 16TB, not 2TB.

So that should buy the old MBR scheme another few years.

4K-sector drives and Linux

Posted Mar 15, 2010 10:16 UTC (Mon) by etienne_lorrain@yahoo.fr (guest, #38022) [Link]

> I figured out that a 4k-sector drive with a traditional MBR can be up to 16TB, not 2TB.

But only for disks with 4096 bytes per LOGICAL sector and 4096 bytes per PHYSICAL sector; you can't find those drives on the market.
There is only 512 bytes per LOGICAL sector and 4096 bytes per PHYSICAL sector for sale, those are 100% compatible with current 512 bytes per sector drive, just are slower in some cases (so they have the same limits).