Apparently Linux and the corresponding partitioning tools were not prepared to deal automatically with disks that have 4KB sectors. It appears the default partitioning (1st partition starting at sector 63) puts this kind of disks in compatibility mode leading to tremendous speed decreases in Linux systems.
Employing schemas with partition starting points and lengths multiple of 8 sectors works around the problem for Linux-based systems.
(8 sectors of 512 bytes = 1 sector of 4 KBytes)
So, two questions:
1) Does the same apply to FreeBSD?
2) How does ZFS deal with this problem (does it at all) when zfs pools are created of whole disks?
P.S.
Here is a link to the most complete (Linux-centric) discussion on the subject I was able to find:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/225974
Employing schemas with partition starting points and lengths multiple of 8 sectors works around the problem for Linux-based systems.
(8 sectors of 512 bytes = 1 sector of 4 KBytes)
So, two questions:
1) Does the same apply to FreeBSD?
2) How does ZFS deal with this problem (does it at all) when zfs pools are created of whole disks?
P.S.
Here is a link to the most complete (Linux-centric) discussion on the subject I was able to find:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/225974