Questions[alignment](server)

I want to install a new SSD and use the the whole device as a PV for LVM - in other words: i don't plan to put even one partition on this device. So aligning partitions on the erase blocks is not needed.

Question(s)

Is it sufficient to set --dataalignment to the erase block size when pvcreateing and --physicalextentsize to a multiple of the erase block size when vgcreateing?

So, assuming my SSD has an erase block size of 1024k, is it ok to

• pvcreate --dataalignment 1024k /dev/ssd
• vgcreate --physicalextentsize $(( x * 1024 ))k ...

Anything else to take into account?

Assuming i'd put ext4-filesystems on the LVs in this VG, it would be a good idea to align the ext4-extents to the LVM-PE-size, right? So ext4-extents should be of same size as or a multiple of LVM-PE-size?

Thanks for any clarification!

I have this server which has it's physical disks in RAID 5 controlled by a 3com raid controller. size of the stripe unit is unknown for the moment (Can check tomorrow in the office).

I need to install windows server 2003 ENT and create 2 partitions (OS, Data). I'd like to create the partitions before the installation on windows server. They have to be aligned properly. I have the newest version of gparted on a disc but I have no clue if this is the right tool. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks

I would like to know if it is necessary to align LVM's in it?

I'm using VMware vSphere and as it is a best practise to align the disks (to 64 or 128 kb) I want to align every disk.

Thanks

EDIT: I'm using VMware vSphere and as it is a best practise to align the virtual disks (to 64 or 128 kb).

Let me just say that the partition boots well and the are no bad sectors on the physical media.

I am running RAID5 on ICH9R. I used dispart of Server 2008 to create an aligned partition. Then installed Server 2003 Ent R2 SP2 on the new partition, formatting it from Server 2003 setup sequence.

In Acronis True Image Bootable version 8353 I notice that it can't see the partition's NTFS file system. Already opened a ticket for them.

I am trying to create a key-less Sysprep image of my server to protect against future failures as well as to help in making new servers with exactly the same software. Acronis backup works in Windows, but then I cannot back it up after Sysprep was executed.

RAW backup takes entirely too long (2.5 hours), and it won't let me resize the partition upon restore.

Was wondering if you could recommend something else that I might try.

We're about to hardware upgrade our exisiting Sql 2008 Server. So, I'm checking out some best practices with regards to hardware, like .. RAID levels for the HD and making sure the TempDB is on a different disk than the DB's, etc.

I then stumbled onto these two posts here and here. They chat about making sure our Windows 2008 servers have the correct partition offset size.

I'm a bit confussed after I read those posts. They mention in various places that..

Windows Server 2008 aligns partitions by default.

So, if i wish to have partition sizes of 64K, Do i need to worry about this? Remember, I'll be doing a fresh install of Windows Server 2008 .... and I can't remember seeing any option during the install, when we partition disks, for partition alignments/sizes.

Can anyone shed some light, in layman's terms, please?

**Note: i'm not talking about C:\ == 50Gig size, D:\ == xxxGig, etc. Not that type of partitioning.