Debian Bug report logs - #601813
Please provide a more friendly/useful message instead of "Warning: The resulting partition is not properly aligned for best performance."

version graph

Package: parted; Maintainer for parted is Parted Maintainer Team <[email protected]>; Source for parted is src:parted (PTS, buildd, popcon).

Reported by: Andras Korn <[email protected]>

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:02 UTC

Severity: wishlist

Tags: upstream

Found in versions parted/2.3-12, parted/2.3-2

Full log

Message #12 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

Received: (at 601813-maintonly) by bugs.debian.org; 14 Dec 2014 06:37:31 +0000
From [email protected] Sun Dec 14 06:37:31 2014
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.2-bugs.debian.org_2005_01_02
	(2011-06-06) on buxtehude.debian.org
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.9 required=4.0 tests=BAYES_00,FOURLA,SPF_HELO_PASS,
	SPF_PASS autolearn=no version=3.3.2-bugs.debian.org_2005_01_02
X-Spam-Bayes: score:0.0000 Tokens: new, 0; hammy, 151; neutral, 118; spammy,
	0. spammytokens: hammytokens:0.000-+--H*u:2014-03-12,
	0.000-+--H*UA:2014-03-12, 0.000-+--H*u:1.5.23, 0.000-+--H*UA:1.5.23,
	0.000-+--H*F:debian
Return-path: <[email protected]>
Received: from 207-172-210-101.c3-0.hdp-ubr1.sbo-hdp.ma.static.cable.rcn.com ([207.172.210.101] helo=mailhost.m5p.com)
	by buxtehude.debian.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256)
	(Exim 4.80)
	(envelope-from <[email protected]>)
	id 1Y02o6-0004p8-UM; Sun, 14 Dec 2014 06:37:31 +0000
Received: from m5p.com (ssh.m5p.com [IPv6:2001:418:3fd::fb])
	by mailhost.m5p.com (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id sBE5aZjE058263;
	Sun, 14 Dec 2014 00:36:41 -0500 (EST)
	(envelope-from [email protected])
Received: (from ehem@localhost)
	by m5p.com (8.14.8/8.13.7/Submit) id sBE5aZkp077374;
	Sat, 13 Dec 2014 21:36:35 -0800 (PST)
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 21:36:35 -0800
From: Elliott Mitchell <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected], [email protected]
Subject: Parted's problematic alignment message
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12)
X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.73
X-Greylist: Sender passed SPF test, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.7 (mailhost.m5p.com [IPv6:2001:418:3fd::f7]); Sun, 14 Dec 2014 00:36:41 -0500 (EST)
X-Greylist: delayed 3641 seconds by postgrey-1.34 at buxtehude; Sun, 14 Dec 2014 06:37:30 UTC
X-CrossAssassin-Score: 3

found 601813 2.3-12
stop

This is still present in newer versions.  In interactive mode you get the
message:

"Warning: The resulting partition is not properly aligned for best performance.
Ignore/Cancel?"

Reading #643625, this message is given for any disk slice not aligned to
1MB.  Given the circumstances it appears in, the message is about as
useful as displaying a gigantic question mark on screen since this leaves
no clue this is based on arbitrary (though not entirely unreasonable)
built-in limit which is neither documented nor findable by looking up
information on the disk drive.

In addition to Andras Korn's suggestion of printing the "optimal" values,
I'd suggest "align", "+align" and "-align" options for the above prompt.
These would be for nearest "optimal" alignment, nearest higher "optimal"
sector, and nearest lower "optimal" sector.

I must also point out it is quite possible 1MB may not be too small to be
optimal with future storage devices.  I suspect the technology behind
Western Digital/HGST's "shingled magnetic recording" may well result in
an optimal write size distinctly larger than 1MB (and Flash could
follow).

I'm inclined to rate this as distinctly worse than wishlist given how
often people will run into this and how bad the behavior is.


-- 
(\___(\___(\______          --=> 8-) EHM <=--          ______/)___/)___/)
 \BS (    |         [email protected]  PGP 87145445         |    )   /
  \_CS\   |  _____  -O #include <stddisclaimer.h> O-   _____  |   /  _/
8A19\___\_|_/58D2 7E3D DDF4 7BA6 <-PGP-> 41D1 B375 37D0 8714\_|_/___/5445

Send a report that this bug log contains spam.

Debian bug tracking system administrator <[email protected]>. Last modified: Tue May 13 17:32:44 2025; Machine Name: bembo

Debian Bug tracking system

Debbugs is free software and licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2. The current version can be obtained from https://bugs.debian.org/debbugs-source/.

Copyright © 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson, 2005-2017 Don Armstrong, and many other contributors.