Recently purchased two NVMe SSD disks. The Corsair Force MP600 and the Inland Premium 2TB. Installed in a desktop running Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS.
First, installed nvme-cli tools. Userspace tooling to control NVMe drives:
sudo apt install nvme-cli
Now we can list the nvme on the system:
lido@tower:~$ sudo nvme list
Node SN Model Namespace Usage Format FW Rev
---------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- --------- -------------------------- ---------------- --------
/dev/nvme0n1 21118230000128562430 Force MP600 1 2.00 TB / 2.00 TB 512 B + 0 B EGFM13.0
/dev/nvme1n1 21032520480143 PCIe SSD 1 2.05 TB / 2.05 TB 512 B + 0 B ECFM13.3
Note that the format size was 512B by default.
Per the Arch Wiki I learned I could format each nvme with LBA 4096 for better performance.
first, had to check if the nvme would support this. Using nvme-cli I ran the identify namespace command for the MP600:
sudo nvme id-ns -H /dev/nvme0n1
Note the last two lines describe the lba format of 512 as the default and current format. But there is a 4096 option.
lido@tower:~$ sudo nvme id-ns -H /dev/nvme0n1
NVME Identify Namespace 1:
nsze : 0xe8e088b0
ncap : 0xe8e088b0
nuse : 0xe8e088b0
nsfeat : 0
[4:4] : 0 NPWG, NPWA, NPDG, NPDA, and NOWS are Not Supported
[2:2] : 0 Deallocated or Unwritten Logical Block error Not Supported
[1:1] : 0 Namespace uses AWUN, AWUPF, and ACWU
[0:0] : 0 Thin Provisioning Not Supported
nlbaf : 1
flbas : 0
[4:4] : 0 Metadata Transferred in Separate Contiguous Buffer
[3:0] : 0 Current LBA Format Selected
mc : 0
[1:1] : 0 Metadata Pointer Not Supported
[0:0] : 0 Metadata as Part of Extended Data LBA Not Supported
dpc : 0
[4:4] : 0 Protection Information Transferred as Last 8 Bytes of Metadata Not Supported
[3:3] : 0 Protection Information Transferred as First 8 Bytes of Metadata Not Supported
[2:2] : 0 Protection Information Type 3 Not Supported
[1:1] : 0 Protection Information Type 2 Not Supported
[0:0] : 0 Protection Information Type 1 Not Supported
dps : 0
[3:3] : 0 Protection Information is Transferred as Last 8 Bytes of Metadata
[2:0] : 0 Protection Information Disabled
nmic : 0
[0:0] : 0 Namespace Multipath Not Capable
rescap : 0
[6:6] : 0 Exclusive Access - All Registrants Not Supported
[5:5] : 0 Write Exclusive - All Registrants Not Supported
[4:4] : 0 Exclusive Access - Registrants Only Not Supported
[3:3] : 0 Write Exclusive - Registrants Only Not Supported
[2:2] : 0 Exclusive Access Not Supported
[1:1] : 0 Write Exclusive Not Supported
[0:0] : 0 Persist Through Power Loss Not Supported
fpi : 0
[7:7] : 0 Format Progress Indicator Not Supported
dlfeat : 9
[4:4] : 0 Guard Field of Deallocated Logical Blocks is set to 0xFFFF
[3:3] : 0x1 Deallocate Bit in the Write Zeroes Command is Supported
[2:0] : 0x1 Bytes Read From a Deallocated Logical Block and its Metadata are 0x00
nawun : 0
nawupf : 0
nacwu : 0
nabsn : 0
nabo : 0
nabspf : 0
noiob : 0
nvmcap : 2000398934016
nsattr : 0
nvmsetid: 0
anagrpid: 0
endgid : 0
nguid : 00000000000000000000000000000000
eui64 : 6479a749102010b0
LBA Format 0 : Metadata Size: 0 bytes - Data Size: 512 bytes - Relative Performance: 0x2 Good (in use)
LBA Format 1 : Metadata Size: 0 bytes - Data Size: 4096 bytes - Relative Performance: 0x1 Better
Reading up on this I found that I should probably move these to be 4k? Since MIN-IO, OPT-IO, PHY-SEC, and LOG-SEC are all 512.
lido@tower:~$ lsblk -t
NAME ALIGNMENT MIN-IO OPT-IO PHY-SEC LOG-SEC ROTA SCHED RQ-SIZE RA WSAME
loop0 0 512 0 512 512 0 mq-deadline 256 128 0B
loop1 0 512 0 512 512 0 mq-deadline 256 128 0B
loop2 0 512 0 512 512 0 mq-deadline 256 128 0B
loop3 0 512 0 512 512 0 mq-deadline 256 128 0B
loop4 0 512 0 512 512 0 mq-deadline 256 128 0B
loop5 0 512 0 512 512 0 mq-deadline 256 128 0B
sda 0 512 0 512 512 0 mq-deadline 64 128 0B
├─sda1 0 512 0 512 512 0 mq-deadline 64 128 0B
├─sda2 0 512 0 512 512 0 mq-deadline 64 128 0B
└─sda3 0 512 0 512 512 0 mq-deadline 64 128 0B
└─ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv 0 512 0 512 512 0 128 128 0B
sdb 0 512 0 512 512 0 mq-deadline 64 128 0B
└─sdb1 0 512 0 512 512 0 mq-deadline 64 128 0B
sdc 0 4096 0 4096 512 1 mq-deadline 2 128 0B
└─sdc1 0 4096 0 4096 512 1 mq-deadline 2 128 0B
sdd 0 4096 0 4096 512 1 mq-deadline 2 128 0B
└─sdd1 0 4096 0 4096 512 1 mq-deadline 2 128 0B
nvme1n1 0 512 512 512 512 0 none 1023 128 0B
nvme0n1 0 512 512 512 512 0 none 1023 128 0B
So to format with 4k LBA I ran:
sudo nvme format -l 1 /dev/nvme0n1
Now the LBA reports 4k
lido@tower:~$ sudo nvme list
Node SN Model Namespace Usage Format FW Rev
---------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- --------- -------------------------- ---------------- --------
/dev/nvme0n1 21118230000128562430 Force MP600 1 2.00 TB / 2.00 TB 4 KiB + 0 B EGFM13.0
/dev/nvme1n1 21032520480143 PCIe SSD 1 2.05 TB / 2.05 TB 4 KiB + 0 B ECFM13.3
Next is setting up partitions and filesystem.
sudo gdisk /dev/nvme0n1
Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 488378646 sectors, 1.8 TiB
Model: Force MP600
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096/4096 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): CC8D83FE-BA47-4B57-8BED-3FD4AEC3361A
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 5
First usable sector is 6, last usable sector is 488378640
Partitions will be aligned on 256-sector boundaries
Total free space is 250 sectors (1000.0 KiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 256 488378640 1.8 TiB 8300 Linux filesystem
Formatting the partition as xfs.
sudo mkfs.xfs -m crc=0 /dev/nvme0n1p1 -f