[mythtv-users] Does MythDora-12 support advanced format drives?

[Jarod Wilson]

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 9:03 AM, Don Brett <dlbrett at zoominternet.net> wrote:
> Jarod Wilson wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 8:27 PM, Don Brett <dlbrett at zoominternet.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I built a brand new MythDora box with a Western Digital 1TB drive (model
>>> WD10EARS).  It uses advanced formating (4k physical sectors), but now I'm
>>> not so sure it's supported yet in Fedora.  Does anyone know if it is...or
>>> if
>>> not, any suggestions?
>>>
>>> Here's a couple of threads I came across (they imply it's not supported
>>> until Fedora-13):
>>>
>>> http://fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=240404&highlight=WD10EARS
>>> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.utilities.util-linux-ng/2926
>>>
>>
>> Thread says 2.6.31+ and either a new enough util-linux-ng or parted
>> are sufficient. Fedora 12 is fine on the kernel side, not certain on
>> the userspace side. It *can* be done w/older parted, but requires a
>> bit of manual work partitioning the drive to make sure you get proper
>> alignment. Anaconda may do that for you already anyway, but I'm not
>> sure. Newer parted has a -a/--align flag that definitely gets it
>> right, and is definitely available in Fedora 13. Even an updated build
>> being available for F12 wouldn't help though if it is indeed required
>> for Anaconda to get things right, since its the parted built into the
>> installer image that Anaconda uses. So all that to say... It might
>> work, it might not. :)
>>
>> A thought though... Start up an F13 installer. Partition the disk as
>> you want to use it w/MythDora. Restart the machine and boot the
>> MythDora 12 installer. Instead of repartitioning, use the existing
>> partitions, which should all be properly aligned. Proceed w/the rest
>> of the install as normal.
>>
>>
>
> That sounded like a great idea, so I gave it a try, but got stuck.  I used
> the live-cd version of f-13 and selected the "install to hard disk" icon
> after it loaded.  The installation did everything very automatically.  It
> actually did the entire install before I caught it, so I had to start over
> and hit the reset button immediately after the formats finished.  The format
> looked very similar to the md-12 format.  It did the same motions and took
> about the same time...I think it did the same thing as md-12.
>
> I got the partitioning and formatting done with Fedora-13, went back to
> md-12 and walked through the standard installation steps, but there was no
> selection to use the existing partitioning; I tried every combination.  I
> would have sworn I had seen that selection some time ago.

Hrm, yeah, I swear there *is* a way to do custom partitioning, but its
been a while since I've stepped through the MD12 installer.

> By the way, I don't know that this installation is actually bad.  MD-12
> install and runs fine, but has a weird slow-down (about 50% of the time).
>  When it's fast, it's pretty fast...when it's slowed-down, it's really slow.
>  It's a lot like the other threads were describing.
>
> The first time I installed md-12 on this machine, it warned me that there
> was something wrong with the disk and offered to fix it, which I let it do.
>  I just assumed it had something to do with the advanced formatting feature.
>  The installation went fine after that.  I later noticed the lags and
> started looking into it.  Is there a way to tell if it's right?

I'm sure there is, but I'm afraid I don't know what it is offhand.

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com