How to find Disk Alignment and file allocation of a NAS share

  • Hi all,

    Just got a NAS share for SQL backups and i wanted to look at the file allocation and disk alignment for it. Doing the normal command lines didnt work as its not seen as a local disk.

    Ive asked the Sys guys and they say when it was formatted there were no options to choose from, it just just pick RAID level then format.

  • AFAIK you'll have to work through your NAS group. You will not be able to see that through Windows since it not a Windows partition, it's just another network resource.

    Most of the newer stuff (including Windows 2008) understands why it's bad to start formatting with an offset of 31.5K (?) and they start at 1024K, which is compatible with just about every commonly used block/cluster size. What is your concern?

    There are no special teachers of virtue, because virtue is taught by the whole community.
    --Plato

  • n00bDBA (5/4/2012)


    Hi all,

    Just got a NAS share for SQL backups and i wanted to look at the file allocation and disk alignment for it. Doing the normal command lines didnt work as its not seen as a local disk.

    Ive asked the Sys guys and they say when it was formatted there were no options to choose from, it just just pick RAID level then format.

    It's irrelevant in this case, don't concern yourself with it

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    "Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉

  • Perry Whittle (5/4/2012)


    n00bDBA (5/4/2012)


    Hi all,

    Just got a NAS share for SQL backups and i wanted to look at the file allocation and disk alignment for it. Doing the normal command lines didnt work as its not seen as a local disk.

    Ive asked the Sys guys and they say when it was formatted there were no options to choose from, it just just pick RAID level then format.

    It's irrelevant in this case, don't concern yourself with it

    Why? Because of the NAS' file system type (non-NTFS)? Or because it is not the OPs Windows box's concern? Or something else?

    There are no special teachers of virtue, because virtue is taught by the whole community.
    --Plato

  • Partly because of the potential for a non NTFS file system, partly because it isn't the Windows box concern. Mostly because the remote file share is an entity outside of the Windows server. Would be interesting to know the file system type in use, I'm guessing it's either ext2\ext3 on some kind of snap server

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    "Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉

  • Perry Whittle (5/4/2012)


    Partly because of the potential for a non NTFS file system, partly because it isn't the Windows box concern. Mostly because the remote file share is an entity outside of the Windows server. Would be interesting to know the file system type in use, I'm guessing it's either ext2\ext3 on some kind of snap server

    Thanks. That's pretty much where I landed too. I don't know much about the OSes or file systems used by the various NAS devices out there, just that it's not much concern to Windows because it is abstracted away as just another network resource.

    There are no special teachers of virtue, because virtue is taught by the whole community.
    --Plato

  • Most of them tend to be Linux orientated as the OS is free otherwise your NAS box would double in price.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    "Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply