`zpool create' fails on geli ...

[Mark Martinec]

> Fabian Keil wrote:
> > Zeus Panchenko <zeus at ibs.dn.ua> wrote:
> > > geli init -K /path/key -s 4096 -e aes-xts /dev/adaX
> > 
> > Does your disk actually use 4k sectors? Otherwise it's not clear
> > to me that "-s 4096" makes sense when using ZFS.
> > 
> > I'm not claiming that it's obviously wrong, but I'm not aware of
> > any benchmarks that show that it's better than the default in
> > any way.

It benefits geli performance (tried it, it does):

$ man geli
  -s sectorsize   Change decrypted provider's sector size.
                  Increasing sector size allows to increase per-
                  formance, because we need to generate an IV
                  and do encrypt/decrypt for every single sector
                  - less number of sectors means less work to

> It is my understanding that creating a 4K setup will prepare you
> for the day when your replacement drive is a 4K one.
> No benefit today, but also no real performance hit. And we avoid
> a real performance hit later.

That day has already arrived some time ago.
For ZFS on WD20EARS disks, persuading ZFS to use 4k sectors
makes a significant performance boost.

  Mark