fdisk said the minimum and optimal access size for my hard drive was 4096 bytes.name=Matthew%20Campbell&email=trenix25%40pm.me-------- Original Message --------On Jun 8, 2020, 7:42 PM, Dan Ritter < dsr@randomstring.org> wrote:Jude DaShiell wrote:> Does any optimal formula exist based on hard drive size which minimizes> time needed for checking and blanking hard drives in connection with the> block size value?If the disk firmware offers it, a SMART long read/verify testshould be close to optimal. Consult smartctl and the disk manufacturerfor details.For conventional spinning hard disks, the optimal write size would bea complete cylinder at a time. That varies across the radius of the disk,and may not be made available to the OS.In lieue of knowing that, writes which are reasonable integermultiples of the sector size are very good. 1 MB is probablygood for most drives.For SMR spinning disks,the optimal write size is one completewrite zone. I've heard that this is standardizing at 256MB, butI would want to confirm with the manufacturer. There are a lotof interactions with PMR caches.For SSD, writing wears out the storage mechanism. A write-alltest won't test reliability; flaws will be detected and remappedwithout letting the host know.-dsr-