Following links collected in this thread I started to check blockdev and found the following output indicating different sizes for partition c0d9p1 and the underlying device (c0d9):
[root@machine ~]# blockdev --report /dev/cciss/c0d9
RO RA SSZ BSZ StartSec Size Device
rw 256 512 4096 0 3906963632 /dev/cciss/c0d9
[root@machine ~]# blockdev --report /dev/cciss/c0d9p1
RO RA SSZ BSZ StartSec Size Device
rw 256 512 2048 1 3906959039 /dev/cciss/c0d9p1
We have a lot of small files, so yes the block size is smaller than normal. The device is a logical driver on an HP Smart Array P410 raid controller, simple disk without any raid - RAID 0 on one disk to be precise. (Please note that above configuration is a feature not a bug).
Therefore, I have the following questions.
- Can the above discrepancy in the block size affect disk performance?
- Can I control the block size using
hpacucli
?