From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 4 17:48:58 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4DA484CE for ; Fri, 4 Jan 2013 17:48:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mailnull@mips.inka.de) Received: from mail-in-09.arcor-online.net (mail-in-09.arcor-online.net [151.189.21.49]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 041AFF3F for ; Fri, 4 Jan 2013 17:48:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-in-19-z2.arcor-online.net (mail-in-19-z2.arcor-online.net [151.189.8.36]) by mx.arcor.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8D23D1975A3 for ; Fri, 4 Jan 2013 18:14:03 +0100 (CET) Received: from mail-in-15.arcor-online.net (mail-in-15.arcor-online.net [151.189.21.55]) by mail-in-19-z2.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 80AB63F83DD for ; Fri, 4 Jan 2013 18:14:03 +0100 (CET) Received: from lorvorc.mips.inka.de (dslb-188-105-086-158.pools.arcor-ip.net [188.105.86.158]) by mail-in-15.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 584471AB530 for ; Fri, 4 Jan 2013 18:14:03 +0100 (CET) X-DKIM: Sendmail DKIM Filter v2.8.2 mail-in-15.arcor-online.net 584471AB530 Received: from lorvorc.mips.inka.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by lorvorc.mips.inka.de (8.14.5/8.14.3) with ESMTP id r04HE2QY038185 for ; Fri, 4 Jan 2013 18:14:02 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from mailnull@lorvorc.mips.inka.de) Received: (from mailnull@localhost) by lorvorc.mips.inka.de (8.14.5/8.14.5/Submit) id r04HE2xt038184 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Fri, 4 Jan 2013 18:14:02 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from mailnull) From: naddy@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) Subject: bsdinstall misaligns partitions Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2013 17:14:02 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: Originator: naddy@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2013 17:48:58 -0000 Shouldn't bsdinstall attempt to align partitions on 4k boundaries both for the benefit of 4k drives and flash storage? I just installed 9.1R i386 for fun and practice, in fact I installed it several times, and I played around with the partitioning options. * The modern GPT scheme reserves 34 sectors at the start of the disk. Your newly created partitions will start at offset 34 and will therefor be misaligned. I ended up configuring a 63 kB freebsd-boot partition, which ensures that the following partitions are aligned. * The old MBR scheme is even worse. The FreeBSD slice will start at sector 63, guaranteeing that any partitions contained within will be misaligned. There is no way to fix this, unless you shell out and run fdisk manually. * Funnily enough, the ancient BSD "dangerously dedicated" scheme is the only one that out of the box does not misalign partitions. I'm presumably not the first one to notice this issue, and yes, I'm mostly just venting. -- Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de