3 replies to this topic

[amenditman]

I have a new ssd in my laptop for school.
120GB OCZ Vertex3

Installed Windows 7 first and got it all set up. Windows 7 recognizes the ssd and is supposed to do the aligning to Erase Block Size (EBS) automatically. I don't know my Windows system admin utilities well enough to know if there is even a built in to check low level formatting.

I booted PartedMagic and used

CODE

fdisk -lu

to view the low level formatting. Here's the output

CODE

root@PartedMagic:~# fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders, total 234441648 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xef948346

   Device      Boot              Start                   End                 Blocks               Id    System
/dev/sda1       *                2048              206847               102400                 7    HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2                     206848         234438655          117115904                 7    HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

All the how-to's about setting up ssd's say that if you use the default 255 h/ 63 s setup that your first partition has to start on the 2048 sector and that all your other partitions have to start on a sector number evenly divisible by 1024. This will result in the partitions being aligned to the EBS. The only disadvantage I've seen to using 255/63 versus the recommended 32 h/32 s is that you can't start the first partition on 1024, wasting ~1 MB of space.

My first partition starts at 2048, so far so good.
My second partition starts at 206848. Divide that by either 512 (the EBS) or 1024 and you get a whole number, so that is good.
Looks like Windows 7 default formatting set it up just fine.

Now the fun part.

If I use Windows Disk Management administrative tool to shrink the Windows partition and provide space for a Linux install, will my Linux partitions be easily aligned to EBS?
I think yes, but I don't know for sure. When I shrink the partition, I will need to do the math to be sure and provide the correct starting place for Linux. I will need to do the math for each new partition to start on the correct location.

Should I use Windows Disk Management to create the partitions and then let the installer do the high level formatting/filesystem creation? Or should I use GParted? If I use Gparted to make the new partitions, will I set them to align to MB?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[sunrat]

I read somewhere that the easiest way to get partitions aligned is to do it with Win  7 disk management as it does it automatically. Then format  partitions for Linux later.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Roger (sunrat) posted this the other day. Maybe it will help.

[amenditman]

Nope, all Linux only set up. That's pretty simple, not as simple as Windows has made it yet.