Re: Reason to use a partition

[Ramon Hofer <ramonhofer@bluewin.ch>]

On Die, 2012-07-03 at 03:59 -0500, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> On 7/3/2012 3:16 AM, Ramon Hofer wrote:
> > On Tue, 03 Jul 2012 10:04:04 +0200, Claudius Hubig wrote:
> > 
> >> Hello Ramon,
> >>
> >> Ramon Hofer <ramonhofer@bluewin.ch> wrote:
> >>> /dev/sdi1      jfs    1.9T  1.9T  3.9G 100% /mnt/recordings /dev/sdk   
> >>>    xfs    1.9T  1.9T  3.3G 100% /mnt/recordings_temp
> >>>
> >>> Is there a reason why one should use a partition spanning the whole
> >>> disk instead of creating the filesystem directly on the disk?
> >>
> >> If you use a partition, it is possible to move the partition a little
> >> bit (a few kilo-/megabytes is usually enough) to align it with the
> >> blocks of the HDD.
> >>
> >> I don’t know if this is possible when using disks directly. In any case,
> >> it will be impossible to boot from such a disk, since there’s no room
> >> for the MBR (or, if there is room for the MBR, the filesystem will be
> >> unaligned with the disk blocks).
> >>
> >> I therefore would always prefer to use a single-partition layout rather
> >> than the raw disk.
> > 
> > Thanks for the answer!
> 
> Except Claudius gave you the wrong answer for your situation.  You got
> impatient again Ramon.

I'm learning for exams and am happy for any distraction ;-)
And I wanted to ask at different places to be able to compare different
answers.


> > I have created a new partition and the filesystem on it.
> 
> As I replied on XFS, there's ZERO reason for putting one partition on a
> dedicated mythTV recording drive.  And since this is an Advanced Format
> drive, you instantly misaligned XFS by creating that partition.  None of
> the Squeeze partitioning tools understand ADF drives and will all
> therefore create a sector misaligned partition, causing serious
> performance degradation due to RMW cycles within the drive.
> 
> The definition of the word "partition" means to divide a whole into
> smaller pieces.  If you do not intend to divide your disk into smaller
> pieces, but will be formatting the entire disk with a single filesystem,
> then there is no reason to create a partition table with 1 partition.

That's how I understand the word partition too.


> Delete the partition, and directly format the drive with XFS, and you'll
> be sector aligned, and everything will work as you expect.

Thanks!

I'm now copying the recordings :-)


Cheers
Ramon