Hi I have googled extensively and posted elsewhere but I have not found an answer to the following. I have a 128GB SSD and have created the partitions such that they all have a modulo 512kB start and modulo 512kB length The first partition begins on cylinder 4 (counting from zero) Full details below. parted /dev/sdb shows the partitions to be as I asked - hopefully correct from the alignment point of view. However when an ext3 file system is created on the partitions they behave differently - dumpe2fs shows /dev/sdb1 First block: 1 /dev/sdb2 First block: 0 /dev/sdb3 First block: 0 It would seem that even though the partitions are aligned the ext3 file system on the first partition is not. I am assuming that the offset in the file system will negate the careful alignment of the first partition, is that true? I have checked on other disks (No LVM), even those with extended/logical partitions it is only the first partition on the disk that shows the First block: offset of 1 Do you know why this should be ? Is it because "everyone" assumes that the first partition always begins immediately after the MBR and MSDOS uses it somehow? Is there really some vital data at the front of the first partition irrespective of where the partition is located? Should mkfs.ext3 really treat the first partition differently? I realise that I could place a dummy partition at the beginning of the disk but that just doesn't feel right! Am I misunderstanding things? Any feedback would be appreciated John Appendix - Fully updated F12 - e2fsprogs the latest version 1.41.11 I used fdisk -H 224 -S 56 /dev/sdb to give [root@fuerte ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb Disk /dev/sdb: 128.0 GB, 128035676160 bytes 224 heads, 56 sectors/track, 19935 cylinders Units = cylinders of 12544 * 512 = 6422528 bytes Disk identifier: 0xfc656088 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 5 20 100352 83 Linux /dev/sdb2 21 6400 40015360 83 Linux /dev/sdb3 6401 19932 84872704 83 Linux ------------------------------------------------------- parted shows me Model: ATA C300-CTFDDAC128M (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 19935cyl Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B BIOS cylinder,head,sector geometry: 19935,224,56. Each cylinder is 6423kB. Partition Table: msdos Cylinders Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 4cyl 19cyl 16cyl primary ext3 2 20cyl 6399cyl 6380cyl primary ext3 3 6400cyl 19931cyl 13532cyl primary ext3 -------------------------------------------- chs Number Start End Type File system Flags 1 4,0,0 19,223,55 primary ext3 2 20,0,0 6399,223,55 primary ext3 3 6400,0,0 19931,223,55 primary ext3 -------------------------------------------- Sectors Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 50176s 250879s 200704s primary ext3 2 250880s 80281599s 80030720s primary ext3 3 80281600s 250027007s 169745408s primary ext3 -------------------------------------------- Bytes Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 25690112B 128450559B 102760448B primary ext3 2 128450560B 41104179199B 40975728640B primary ext3 3 41104179200B 128013828095B 86909648896B primary ext3 ############################################################### [root@fuerte ~]# dumpe2fs /dev/sdb1|less dumpe2fs 1.41.11 (14-Mar-2010) Filesystem volume name: ssd1 Last mounted on: <not available> Filesystem UUID: 87e1674f-243b-4a32-83a9-2b3267525c2d Filesystem magic number: 0xEF53 Filesystem revision #: 1 (dynamic) Filesystem features: has_journal ext_attr resize_inode dir_index filetype sparse_super Filesystem flags: signed_directory_hash Default mount options: (none) Filesystem state: clean Errors behavior: Continue Filesystem OS type: Linux Inode count: 25168 Block count: 100352 Reserved block count: 5017 Free blocks: 91504 Free inodes: 25157 First block: 1 Block size: 1024 Fragment size: 1024 Reserved GDT blocks: 256 Blocks per group: 8192 Fragments per group: 8192 Inodes per group: 1936 Inode blocks per group: 242 ---------------------------------------------------------- dumpe2fs /dev/sdb2|less Filesystem volume name: ssd2 Last mounted on: <not available> Filesystem UUID: f2e68b83-62fb-47a7-92d2-16476b3e0a57 Filesystem magic number: 0xEF53 Filesystem revision #: 1 (dynamic) Filesystem features: has_journal ext_attr resize_inode dir_index filetype sparse_super large_file Filesystem flags: signed_directory_hash Default mount options: (none) Filesystem state: clean Errors behavior: Continue Filesystem OS type: Linux Inode count: 2501856 Block count: 10003840 Reserved block count: 500192 Free blocks: 3914067 Free inodes: 2163571 First block: 0 Block size: 4096 Fragment size: 4096 Reserved GDT blocks: 1021 Blocks per group: 32768 Fragments per group: 32768 Inodes per group: 8176 Inode blocks per group: 511 ############################################################### [root@fuerte ~]# hdparm -I /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: ATA device, with non-removable media Model Number: C300-CTFDDAC128MAG Serial Number: 00000000100500006CED Firmware Revision: 0001 Standards: Used: unknown (minor revision code 0x0028) Supported: 8 7 6 5 Likely used: 8 Configuration: Logical max current cylinders 16383 16383 heads 16 16 sectors/track 63 63 -- CHS current addressable sectors: 250069680 LBA user addressable sectors: 250069680 LBA48 user addressable sectors: 250069680 Logical Sector size: 512 bytes Physical Sector size: 512 bytes Logical Sector-0 offset: 0 bytes device size with M = 1024*1024: 122104 MBytes device size with M = 1000*1000: 128035 MBytes (128 GB) cache/buffer size = unknown Nominal Media Rotation Rate: Solid State Device -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines