From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Mon Aug 31 17:11:42 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C7609C7F75 for ; Mon, 31 Aug 2015 17:11:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwmaillists@googlemail.com) Received: from mail-wi0-x22f.google.com (mail-wi0-x22f.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:400c:c05::22f]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "smtp.gmail.com", Issuer "Google Internet Authority G2" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 0F15F14EA for ; Mon, 31 Aug 2015 17:11:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwmaillists@googlemail.com) Received: by wibq14 with SMTP id q14so6882796wib.0 for ; Mon, 31 Aug 2015 10:11:40 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlemail.com; s=20120113; h=date:from:to:subject:message-id:in-reply-to:references:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=dCONqWwV3C5WyfzuChcfGy+rt6oJffXNk3JDH0DA7jk=; b=kegwgQTUHoiLMjaQEKHLJSCPUt3Vyidv4ef/4ZmTX+jgBFO9FsRqkyIu8XpAe+syVR stVbNcihUlMlfT8GZYWkjMl8tIXnBP0HBDa/NQhn69ZLrRwqsWTe7ZnjFXwcF3pHEb97 a9cV79EqYAm493E7dVvnkcer1L/7rpmqiEQCW22suNOLjYzt7/zpMiAlIoHL7ql9/FjE hrC1giJ8i3AZjqbGlvhmJhkIxQEz53Cx9/2cDF8dtEy9Xx9BW2ZawLraVmMnrYNQBuM6 rRv4ReE3agmU3lzOAW/LLwZD26dU11/C4gl5Vks/WHK3j9nlSdV6Ws7VWPtQKaYOKGV5 Nm4w== X-Received: by 10.195.11.37 with SMTP id ef5mr27883498wjd.60.1441041100470; Mon, 31 Aug 2015 10:11:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gumby.homeunix.com ([90.195.198.255]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id eu2sm18947242wic.8.2015.08.31.10.11.38 for (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Mon, 31 Aug 2015 10:11:39 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2015 18:11:35 +0100 From: RW To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Replacing Drive with SSD Message-ID: <20150831181135.7682a810@gumby.homeunix.com> In-Reply-To: <55E4865B.1000104@sneakertech.com> References: <20150829220311.c7608be1.freebsd@edvax.de> <55E45973.2050103@sneakertech.com> <55E4865B.1000104@sneakertech.com> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.12.0 (GTK+ 2.24.28; amd64-portbld-freebsd10.0) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2015 17:11:42 -0000 On Mon, 31 Aug 2015 12:52:43 -0400 Quartz wrote: > > > > It provides a pool of blocks that have not and will not be > > written. > > Bbut how does the drive "know" that those blocks are not allocated by > a partition somewhere and are safe to use as spares? It's not like > the drive firmware reads into the partition table or anything. It's analogous to virtual memory. It's the unused physical blocks that form the free pool. The point of leaving the unpartitioned space is that it's a region of a logical address space with no physical blocks attached.