February 20, 2010
WD hdd: Advanced Format
I'm changing my main hdd from 1tb Seagate (see previous post about seagate problems) to 1tb WD green.
I've got new 1Tb WD HDD formatted with "Advanced Format". I'm going to use it as main hdd after cloning partitions from current Seagate. First thing I made is just cloned whole hdd and restarted from new one. Hmm, performance is REALLY BAD. Let's read the manual...
The instruction on new hdd says: use WD Align utility if you use cloning software. No details. Just does some magic to your hdd.
The thing that was not said almost anywhere on wdc.com or all the other sites who just repost text from wdc: when to run wd align utility?
The purpose of wd align tools is to align partitions on the border of 4kb (usually size is 512b) physical sectors (ntfs cluster is aligned in this case and the overall performance is better). HDD emulates more accurate 512b-step addressing, but this is very slow, because NTFS uses 4k clusters that usually (3/4 probability :-), with default winxp partitioning increases to 100%, because of some strange reserve of 63 sectors before first partition) breaks to 2 physical sectors. The problem is that to "align" 30Gb partition (not even half of whole 1Tb hdd space) filled to 25Gb with data, it requires more than an hour! If you have already cloned partitions with data filled for example 500Gb (50% of whole disk), it takes ~20 hours. I had ~750 Gb of data. Not way to align in a reasonable time.
The right way is to make empty partitions before cloning your data to new hdd, align it with "paragon wd align" (~10 seconds for 500Gb partition, pretty fast), and after that clone your data using for example Norton Ghost. The only trick is to know sizes of target partitions. To be sure your data fits there well, adjust free space to be more than 3-5%. And remember that not all data cloning software defragments target partition, some use "sector to sector" copy (only non-empty sectors of course).
Good luck with Advanced Format disks! Some say that soon all of HDDs will be made using AF (the 4k sector size increase disk space usage, because require less low-level intersector markers which require some space).
Surprise
I've got new 1Tb WD HDD formatted with "Advanced Format". I'm going to use it as main hdd after cloning partitions from current Seagate. First thing I made is just cloned whole hdd and restarted from new one. Hmm, performance is REALLY BAD. Let's read the manual...
Details
The instruction on new hdd says: use WD Align utility if you use cloning software. No details. Just does some magic to your hdd.
The thing that was not said almost anywhere on wdc.com or all the other sites who just repost text from wdc: when to run wd align utility?
Problem: aligning takes huge time.
The purpose of wd align tools is to align partitions on the border of 4kb (usually size is 512b) physical sectors (ntfs cluster is aligned in this case and the overall performance is better). HDD emulates more accurate 512b-step addressing, but this is very slow, because NTFS uses 4k clusters that usually (3/4 probability :-), with default winxp partitioning increases to 100%, because of some strange reserve of 63 sectors before first partition) breaks to 2 physical sectors. The problem is that to "align" 30Gb partition (not even half of whole 1Tb hdd space) filled to 25Gb with data, it requires more than an hour! If you have already cloned partitions with data filled for example 500Gb (50% of whole disk), it takes ~20 hours. I had ~750 Gb of data. Not way to align in a reasonable time.
Solution:
The right way is to make empty partitions before cloning your data to new hdd, align it with "paragon wd align" (~10 seconds for 500Gb partition, pretty fast), and after that clone your data using for example Norton Ghost. The only trick is to know sizes of target partitions. To be sure your data fits there well, adjust free space to be more than 3-5%. And remember that not all data cloning software defragments target partition, some use "sector to sector" copy (only non-empty sectors of course).
Good luck with Advanced Format disks! Some say that soon all of HDDs will be made using AF (the 4k sector size increase disk space usage, because require less low-level intersector markers which require some space).
Labels: advanced format, hdd, sector size, wd, wd align, winxp
February 11, 2010
Ubuntu desktop x86 issue: 3Gb RAM only, no PAE support
Upgraded RAM to 4Gb, just noticed that only 3Gb is used by Ubuntu 8.10 x86 desktop, because it has Ubuntu Desktop kernel (the default one) which has no PAE support.
We see in this desktop open-source Ubuntu world the same ugly issue as when using Windows XP: either use much more stable 32-bit (x86) applications and face the inability of using whole 4Gb RAM or go into experimenting with 64-bit apps and have your whole >=4GB RAM used.
So, if you want to use 4Gb RAM or more in your 32bit Ubuntu - you have 2 options:
* either install "server kernel" (which is not optimized for desktop usage and it has issues with third party drivers and the server kernel, especifically, nvidia video adapter drivers), or
* rebuild desktop kernel by yourself (and do it on any kernel update which happens some each month or two).
Welcome to the open-source: Ubuntu have all their own branch of kernel, but do not support PAE there.
I'll try to switch to server kernel and see what happen.
PS I'm thinking of switching workstation from ubuntu to centos or fedora core 12 (btw, it has Gnome by default now!).
We see in this desktop open-source Ubuntu world the same ugly issue as when using Windows XP: either use much more stable 32-bit (x86) applications and face the inability of using whole 4Gb RAM or go into experimenting with 64-bit apps and have your whole >=4GB RAM used.
So, if you want to use 4Gb RAM or more in your 32bit Ubuntu - you have 2 options:
* either install "server kernel" (which is not optimized for desktop usage and it has issues with third party drivers and the server kernel, especifically, nvidia video adapter drivers), or
* rebuild desktop kernel by yourself (and do it on any kernel update which happens some each month or two).
Welcome to the open-source: Ubuntu have all their own branch of kernel, but do not support PAE there.
I'll try to switch to server kernel and see what happen.
PS I'm thinking of switching workstation from ubuntu to centos or fedora core 12 (btw, it has Gnome by default now!).
February 4, 2010
Android G1: more surprises
When I put another operator's SIM card into G1 immediately I started to receive strange SMS (every minute!) from short number 684 with text "Service is temporarily unavailable". A little investigation shows that 684 is operator's aggregation paid short number (operator provides some paid SMS services via that number). More: any outgoing SMS to that number cost $0.16.
So, G1 usage cost $0.16 per minute.
It's of course not so bad as downloading Android updates via 3G (which ate 5$ in 3 minutes for me when I first switched G1 on). But: sending some SMS to network without my permission is not good.
Note that this is not some third-party app: I check every app when installing for permissions and I'm sure that nothing was set up with SMS sending permission.
Some threads (english translation) indicate that this is because G1 has some low-level T-mobile locks (although mine is officially unlocked one from singapore).
By the way, user has no way to officially way to rebuild and reflash its (open-source!) android OS.
So, G1 usage cost $0.16 per minute.
It's of course not so bad as downloading Android updates via 3G (which ate 5$ in 3 minutes for me when I first switched G1 on). But: sending some SMS to network without my permission is not good.
Note that this is not some third-party app: I check every app when installing for permissions and I'm sure that nothing was set up with SMS sending permission.
Some threads (english translation) indicate that this is because G1 has some low-level T-mobile locks (although mine is officially unlocked one from singapore).
By the way, user has no way to officially way to rebuild and reflash its (open-source!) android OS.
