4K format with Optane SSD P1600X

[Vald]

These SSDs come with 512b sectors by default.

Unlike auto-approved "solution" by the moderator here 

https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-Optane-Solid-State-Drives/4K-format-on-Optane-SSD-P1600X/m-p/1478489

where it's claimed that the drive doesn't support 4K sectors, the reality is: 4K formattiing just takes too much time (up to 15min), and Linux kernel with default parameters interrupts the process prematurely without giving sufficient diagnostic info.

It's described here: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/formatting-the-optane-ssd-p1600x-ssdpek1a118ga01-to-use-4k-blocks/195455 

I've been able to reproduce this without trouble with two of my P1600Xs.

[AlHill]

What is your question?

Doc (not an Intel employee or contractor)
[Maybe Windows 12 will be better]

[Vald]

it's not the question, it's the answer, namely to a question answered incorrectly before.

The answer may be useful to others, for instance user "justintocci" in the other ticked had the same problem. Unsolved back then.

[AlHill]

Then, why not reply to the thread with the question instead of starting a new thread that the user will likely not see?

Doc (not an Intel employee or contractor)
[Maybe Windows 12 will be better]

[Vald]

That thread is locked, or maybe I fail to see how to append messages there. Before it was "solved" it was easy to add commens.

With this thread I did make a mistake - I wanted it to be under Optane subforum, somehow manged to put it under storage more generally.

[BrusC_Intel]

Hello, @Vald.

Thank you for posting on the Intel Community Support forums.

I received your thread regarding the answer provided in a previous thread, and I will be reviewing this with you.

We thank you for the feedback, but the official response remains the same, our P1600X does not support variable sector size and it only supports 512. If other sizes can be assigned that is not something supported or validated by us, and there are no additional details we can provide on this.

If you have further comments or concerns, please let me know, but if that is not the case I will close this thread on September 1st.

Regards,

Bruce C.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Vald]

Hi Bruce,

What you say is not good enough.

In the other thread I asked you to support your claim by some sort of document.

Device inquiry by generic tools as well as by Intel tools reveals support of 4K sectors.

If that is a mistake, either new firmware needs to be released to hide the capability,

or Errata must be published, so that any software which depends on capabilities inquiry adds P1600X into "quirks".

BTW, I stumbled on this because of automation I have which, based on device capabilities, switches it to mode with highest "Rel_Perf"  (in smartctl terms).

Regards,

Vlad

[BrusC_Intel]

Hello, Vald.

Feedback from your previous thread had already been submitted after its closure, there are no additional actions we can take from the support side.

Regarding documents that support my claim, the technical product specifications and design documents for Intel Optane drives are not publicly available, but the public article "How to Change the Logical Sector Size in Intel® Optane™ Drives" was updated shortly after your feedback, maybe one or two days, with information regarding the P1600X scenario, so this should support my claim:

- https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000057964/memory-and-storage/data-center-ssds.html

I can certainly submit additional feedback on this topic, so I will contact you back in case more information is required or with a response on what actions will be taken.

Best regards,

Bruce C.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Vald]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for the link. I see it was updated few days after the original thread.

It's good enough for me. It official and makes it clear that whoever chooses to switch to 4K are outside of official support.

Apologies if my messages felt intense.

Regards,

Vlad

[BrusC_Intel · Accepted solution]

Hello, Vald.

Good day,

Thank you for your time and patience.

After further review this situation and other actions that could be taken regarding your feedback with the development team, we can confirm the product specification does not mention support for multiple sector sizes, but the design review of the drive does mention that P1600X supports both 512B and 4KB sector size, so we must in fact apologize for the confusion.

I also received some comments on what you mentioned about the SSD taking an extended period of time to complete this change, and in this case Optane format takes more time than NAND drives, so this can be considered expected, and usually the OS reports a timeout when running the job, so the recommendation is to use the NVMe CLI tool (in Linux) and set the "-t" parameter to specify the timeout value.

An update for the public article will also be issued shortly.

Once again, we apologize for the confusion we created before, the P1600X does support both sector sizes.

If you have any questions, concerns or additional comments, please let me know, and I will follow up on September 5th in case you would like to keep the ticket open a bit longer.

Regards,

Bruce C.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[BrusC_Intel]

Hello, Vald.

Good day,

I wanted to confirm if you had any other questions, comments or concerns before closing the thread.

If there are none, I will be closing it on September 8th after a final follow up.

Regards,

Bruce C.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Vald]

Hi Bruce,

Sorry for delayed response. Thanks for the update. It's good to hear that people who decide to use their P1600X with 4K sectors are not outside of support.

With respect to whether passing large <"-t" parameter to specify the timeout value">is sufficient, I cannot confirm it.
All my current P1600X have been converted to 4K and are used to store ZFS SLOG. Will have opportunity to test on a lab machine only in a few weeks, it's busy with something, and I don't want to risk to freeze it.

I can confirm that combination of "-t" parameter with temporary changes to kernel parameters on Linux 5.10 kernel worked for me.
Kernel parameters which I tweaked for the duration of conversion are in the page linked in this thread:

/sys/module/nvme_core/parameters/default_ps_max_latency_us
/sys/module/nvme_core/parameters/admin_timeout
/proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs

From my perspective the issue is resolved.

Thanks,
Vlad

[BrusC_Intel]

Hello, Vald

Thank you for the response and additional details.

I will proceed to close the thread right now, and it will no longer be monitored by Intel support, but if you require any type of assistance from Intel in the future, just open a new thread, or contact us using any of the available support methods:

- https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/contact-intel.html

Best regards,

Bruce C.

Intel Customer Support Technician