Does FreeBSD start slices at head boundaries?

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 6 Jul 2012 11:58:03 -0700, Eitan Adler wrote:
> On 6 July 2012 11:44, Rick Miller <vmiller at hostileadmin.com> wrote:
> > Thanks for this explanation.
> >
> > Is there any performance advantage to using a "dedicated disk" layout
> > over the old way of creating a slice and having your partitions within
> > it?
> 
> Slices isn't the "old" way.

Compared to the new and modern GPT, it is. :-)

However, if you keep using the "old" way, it will still be
supported and will not confuse either BIOSes or other systems
that are maybe installed on your machine.



> There is no perf advantage for dedicated
> disks. Maybe you get a
> few kb of extra space.

I'm also not aware of any performance issues.



> Don't do it.
> 
> http://www.unixguide.net/freebsd/faq/09.03.shtml

According to the article, there are some BIOSes that don't
seem to like disks not containing a "DOS primary partition"
to start their boot chain. While this may be true, I have
never experienced it.

For maximum security, you can use the "old" approach of
using fdisk + disklabel (creating slice, creating partitions
within slice). This also delivers most compatibility for
other systems, if it should be needed, e. g. in a multiboot
environment.





-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...