+=head1 RECOMMENDED ALIGNMENT
+
+Operating systems older than Windows 2008 and Linux before ca.2010
+place the first sector of the first partition at sector 63, with a 512
+byte sector size. This happens because of a historical accident.
+Drives have to report a cylinder / head / sector (CHS) geometry to the
+BIOS. The geometry is completely meaningless on modern drives, but it
+happens that the geometry reported always has 63 sectors per track.
+The operating system therefore places the first partition at the start
+of the second "track", at sector 63.
+
+When the guest OS is virtualized, the host operating system and
+hypervisor may prefer accesses aligned to one of:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item * 512 bytes
+
+if the host OS uses local storage directly on hard drive partitions,
+and the hard drive has 512 byte physical sectors.
+
+=item * 4 Kbytes
+
+for local storage on new hard drives with 4Kbyte physical sectors; for
+file-backed storage on filesystems with 4Kbyte block size; or for some
+types of network-attached storage.
+
+=item * 64 Kbytes
+
+for high-end network-attached storage. This is the optimal block size
+for some NetApp hardware.
+
+=item * 1 Mbyte
+
+see L</1 MB PARTITION ALIGNMENT> below.
+
+=back
+
+Partitions which are not aligned correctly to the underlying
+storage cause extra I/O. For example:
+
+ sect#63
+ +--------------------------+------
+ | guest |
+ | filesystem block |
+ ---+------------------+------+-------------------+-----+---
+ | host block | host block |
+ | | |
+ ---+-------------------------+-------------------------+---
+
+In this example, each time a 4K guest block is read, two blocks on the
+host must be accessed (so twice as much I/O is done). When a 4K guest
+block is written, two host blocks must first be read, the old and new
+data combined, and the two blocks written back (4x I/O).
+
+=head2 LINUX HOST BLOCK AND I/O SIZE
+
+New versions of the Linux kernel expose the physical and logical block
+size, and minimum and recommended I/O size.
+
+For a typical consumer hard drive with 512 byte sectors:
+
+ $ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/hw_sector_size
+ 512
+ $ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/physical_block_size
+ 512
+ $ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/logical_block_size
+ 512
+ $ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/minimum_io_size
+ 512
+ $ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/optimal_io_size
+ 0
+
+For a new consumer hard drive with 4Kbyte sectors:
+
+ $ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/hw_sector_size
+ 4096
+ $ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/physical_block_size
+ 4096
+ $ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/logical_block_size
+ 4096
+ $ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/minimum_io_size
+ 4096
+ $ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/optimal_io_size
+ 0
+
+For a NetApp LUN:
+
+ $ cat /sys/block/sdc/queue/logical_block_size
+ 512
+ $ cat /sys/block/sdc/queue/physical_block_size
+ 512
+ $ cat /sys/block/sdc/queue/minimum_io_size
+ 4096
+ $ cat /sys/block/sdc/queue/optimal_io_size
+ 65536
+
+The NetApp allows 512 byte accesses (but they will be very
+inefficient), prefers a minimum 4K I/O size, but the optimal I/O size
+is 64K.
+
+For detailed information about what these numbers mean, see
+L<http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Storage_Administration_Guide/newstorage-iolimits.html>
+
+[Thanks to Matt Booth for providing 4K drive data. Thanks to Mike
+Snitzer for providing NetApp data and additional information.]
+
+=head2 1 MB PARTITION ALIGNMENT
+
+Microsoft picked 1 MB as the default alignment for all partitions
+starting with Windows 2008 Server, and Linux has followed this.
+
+Assuming 512 byte sectors in the guest, you will now see the first
+partition starting at sector 2048, and subsequent partitions (if any)
+will start at a multiple of 2048 sectors.
+
+1 MB alignment is compatible with all current alignment requirements
+(4K, 64K) and provides room for future growth in physical block sizes.
+
+=head2 SETTING ALIGNMENT
+
+L<virt-resize(1)> can change the alignment of the partitions of some
+guests. Currently it can fully align all the partitions of all
+Windows guests, and it will fix the bootloader where necessary. For
+Linux guests, it can align the second and subsequent partitions, so
+the majority of OS accesses except at boot will be aligned.
+
+Another way to correct partition alignment problems is to reinstall
+your guest operating systems. If you install operating systems from
+templates, ensure these have correct partition alignment too.
+
+For older versions of Windows, the following NetApp document contains
+useful information: L<http://media.netapp.com/documents/tr-3747.pdf>
+
+For Red Hat Enterprise Linux E<le> 5, use a Kickstart script that
+contains an explicit C<%pre> section that creates aligned partitions
+using L<parted(8)>. Do not use the Kickstart C<part> command. The
+NetApp document above contains an example.
+
git.annexia.org / libguestfs.git / blobdiff