I will start preclearing some WD30EFRX disks soon and have some questions.

 

Should I use the -A option on this disk or not? I have set MBR: 4k-aligned in disk settings.

 

Does it effect the performance of such a disk for streaming movies of it? Perhaps resulting in choppy playback?

 

In other words: What is the best way to preclear these disks?

 

Any advice appreciated.

The -A option is only relevant for smaller advanced format drives, 3 GB (and also larger) drives will always be 4k-aligned on the GPT partition.

 

Preclear will tell you that the partition is starting at sector 1, but that's only the (unused) MBR partition which is not actually being used.

 

The -A option is only relevant for smaller advanced format drives, 3 GB (and also larger) drives will always be 4k-aligned on the GPT partition.

 

Preclear will tell you that the partition is starting at sector 1, but that's only the (unused) MBR partition which is not actually being used.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you mean 3TB and not 3GB?

 

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but, you, mean 2.2TB and not 3TB:-

Since block addresses and sizes are stored in the partition table of an MBR using 32 bits, the maximum size of a partition and the maximum start address using drives that have 512-byte sectors (actual or emulated) cannot exceed 2 TiB?512 bytes (2,199,023,255,040 bytes or 4,294,967,295 (232?1) sectors × 512 (29) bytes per sector). Alleviating this capacity limitation was one of the prime motivations for the development of the GUID partition table (GPT).

Oops. Of course I meant TB and not GB. And you are quite correct about the 2.2 TB border as well, I simplified since there are no drive sizes between 2 and 3 TB.

Oops. Of course I meant TB and not GB. And you are quite correct about the 2.2 TB border as well, I simplified since there are no drive sizes between 2 and 3 TB.

 

Even though unraid doesn't really support multiple partitions (They'd be useless), it's still good to know the limitations so later down the road OP isn't confused upon why his partitions aren't working/etc.

Oops. Of course I meant TB and not GB. And you are quite correct about the 2.2 TB border as well, I simplified since there are no drive sizes between 2 and 3 TB.

Actually, I've read of 2.5 TB drives.

Actually, I've read of 2.5 TB drives.

 

I've never seen such a specimen in the wild, but it appears they really do exist. I stand corrected then.

 

Actually, I've read of 2.5 TB drives.

 

I've never seen such a specimen in the wild, but it appears they really do exist. I stand corrected then.

 

Western Digital has.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Intellipower-Desktop/dp/B004SBI2MU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362238622&sr=8-1&keywords=wd25ezrx

 

But that was not my question. 

 

 

Actually, I've read of 2.5 TB drives.

 

I've never seen such a specimen in the wild, but it appears they really do exist. I stand corrected then.

 

Western Digital has.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Intellipower-Desktop/dp/B004SBI2MU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362238622&sr=8-1&keywords=wd25ezrx

 

The 3TB build is cheaper than the 2.5TB build, wow.

 

$139.99 for 2.5TB:-

 

$139.72 for 3.0TB:-

 

 

Not the best object to show, it's probably just a 3TB drive with 500GB marked as invalid.

Oops. Of course I meant TB and not GB. And you are quite correct about the 2.2 TB border as well, I simplified since there are no drive sizes between 2 and 3 TB.

 

Even though unraid doesn't really support multiple partitions (They'd be useless), it's still good to know the limitations so later down the road OP isn't confused upon why his partitions aren't working/etc.

 

I use 3 TB Hitachis in unraid, but these are the first 3 TB Western Digitals I'm gonna use, thats why my question in the OP.