[opensuse] Elementary Device Info Question
I feel pretty stupid asking such an elementary question, but don't know how to look it up. What command will tell me the block size of a given hard drive? It could also be a command that gives it to me for all drives but I really only need it for a particular one right now (/dev/sda5), though one that would list all drives and their attributes would probably be more useful long term. Thanks, Greg Wallace -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Greg Wallace wrote:
I feel pretty stupid asking such an elementary question, but don't know how to look it up. What command will tell me the block size of a given hard drive? It could also be a command that gives it to me for all drives but I really only need it for a particular one right now (/dev/sda5), though one that would list all drives and their attributes would probably be more useful long term.
blockdev from the util-linux package. -- Geir A. Myrestrand -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Geir A. Myrestrand wrote:
Greg Wallace wrote:
one that would list all drives and their attributes would probably be more useful long term.
For that purpose you could use `hwinfo --disk`. -- Geir A. Myrestrand -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday, December 07, 2006 @ 1:33 PM, Geir Myrestrand wrote: Greg Wallace wrote:
one that would list all drives and their attributes would probably be more useful long term.
For that purpose you could use `hwinfo --disk`.
--
Geir A. Myrestrand
This command did the job. Both of my drives are 512, so that would seem to be in line with what Randall said; i. e., that 512 is pretty much standard these days, at least based on what I have. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
I just wrote:
On Thursday, December 07, 2006 @ 1:33 PM, Geir Myrestrand wrote: Greg Wallace wrote:
one that would list all drives and their attributes would probably be more useful long term.
For that purpose you could use `hwinfo --disk`.
--
Geir A. Myrestrand
This command did the job. Both of my drives are 512, so that would seem to be in line with what Randall said; i. e., that 512 is pretty much standard these days, at least based on what I have.
Some time back, I used Partition Magic to format a device and I would swear I was able to specify 4096 as a block size. I split the device into two partitions and made one of them NTFS and the other EXT2. I can't remember for sure, but I sort of think it was on the NTFS partition that I used the 4096, but maybe it was both of them. Could I possibly have done that on either of those partitions? Maybe that's only possible on NTFS partitions. The reason I made them (it) so large was that I was only going to use the device for full system backups (20 Gig files, more or less) and I thought the bigger the block size the faster the IO. That may not have been a correct assumption anyway, but in some test cases I ran the io seemed to be faster with the bigger block sizes. Greg Wallace -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 2006/12/07 15:58 (GMT-0600) Greg Wallace apparently typed:
Some time back, I used Partition Magic to format a device and I would swear I was able to specify 4096 as a block size. I split the device into two partitions and made one of them NTFS and the other EXT2. I can't remember for sure, but I sort of think it was on the NTFS partition that I used the 4096, but maybe it was both of them.
4096 is the 8 sector cluster size (minimum space used by one file) used in that case by the operating system's format utility. -- "Let your conversation be always full of grace." Colossians 4:6 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday, December 07, 2006 @ 4:08 PM, Felix Miata wrote:
On 2006/12/07 15:58 (GMT-0600) Greg Wallace apparently typed:
Some time back, I used Partition Magic to format a device and I would swear I was able to specify 4096 as a block size. I split the device into two partitions and made one of them NTFS and the other EXT2. I can't remember for sure, but I sort of think it was on the NTFS partition that I used the 4096, but maybe it was both of them.
4096 is the 8 sector cluster size (minimum space used by one file) used in that case by the operating system's format utility.
Turns out that's the same block size being used on my SuSE drives. I keyed in -- Blockdev --getbsz /dev/hda and got back 4096. Greg Wallace -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday, December 07, 2006 @ 1:29 PM, Geir Myrestrand wrote:
Greg Wallace wrote:
I feel pretty stupid asking such an elementary question, but don't know how to look it up. What command will tell me the block size of a given hard drive? It could also be a command that gives it to me for all drives but I really only need it for a particular one right now (/dev/sda5), though one that would list all drives and their attributes would probably be more useful long term.
blockdev from the util-linux package.
--
Geir A. Myrestrand
Looks like this was actually the command I needed, as opposed hwinfo. I keyed in -- blockdev --getbsz /dev/sda and got back 4096. So, it would appear that a "block" on my drives consists of 8 sectors. It was really the block size I was interested in. hwinfo did not give me the block size; if it did, it was buried somewhere in there and I couldn't pick it out. Thanks, Greg Wallace -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 07 December 2006 11:22, Greg Wallace wrote:
I feel pretty stupid asking such an elementary question, but don't know how to look it up. What command will tell me the block size of a given hard drive? It could also be a command that gives it to me for all drives but I really only need it for a particular one right now (/dev/sda5), though one that would list all drives and their attributes would probably be more useful long term.
I am curious if there are any magnetic drives in common use today (say, IDE-, SATA -, SCSI-, FireWire- or USB-connected and 15,000 RPM or less) whose native sector size is anything other than 512 bytes?
Thanks, Greg Wallace
Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 2006/12/07 11:42 (GMT-0800) Randall R Schulz apparently typed:
On Thursday 07 December 2006 11:22, Greg Wallace wrote:
I feel pretty stupid asking such an elementary question, but don't know how to look it up. What command will tell me the block size of a given hard drive? It could also be a command that gives it to me for all drives but I really only need it for a particular one right now (/dev/sda5), though one that would list all drives and their attributes would probably be more useful long term.
I am curious if there are any magnetic drives in common use today (say, IDE-, SATA -, SCSI-, FireWire- or USB-connected and 15,000 RPM or less) whose native sector size is anything other than 512 bytes?
I bought a couple of SCSI disks claimed to be "good" off eBay several years ago. All the partitioning software I tried on them complained they were unusable. Turned out LLF was required to convert them from 520 (IIRC) btye sectors used by Unix System 5 to standard 512 bytes sectors in order for me to use them. -- "Let your conversation be always full of grace." Colossians 4:6 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Felix Miata wrote:
On 2006/12/07 11:42 (GMT-0800) Randall R Schulz apparently typed:
I am curious if there are any magnetic drives in common use today (say, IDE-, SATA -, SCSI-, FireWire- or USB-connected and 15,000 RPM or less) whose native sector size is anything other than 512 bytes?
I bought a couple of SCSI disks claimed to be "good" off eBay several years ago. All the partitioning software I tried on them complained they were unusable. Turned out LLF was required to convert them from 520 (IIRC) btye sectors used by Unix System 5 to standard 512 bytes sectors in order for me to use them.
I believe NetApp used 520 bytes for a while to facilitate block checksums. Also, I think both IBM AS/400 and iSeries use 520 bytes. I think EMC Clariion uses 520 bytes too, but I am not sure if it has to be. -- Geir A. Myrestrand -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (4)
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Felix Miata -
Geir A. Myrestrand -
Greg Wallace -
Randall R Schulz