Sunday, December 23, 2018

How to format an NVMe drive

To understand the little things in life: https://whatsdathing.blogspot.com/


The following are concise instructions on how to format NVMe drives in Linux.

First, identify the format required:

nvme id-ns /dev/nvme1n1 | grep LBA
LBA Format  0 : Metadata Size: 0   bytes - Data Size: 512 bytes - Relative Performance: 0x1 Better 
LBA Format  1 : Metadata Size: 8   bytes - Data Size: 512 bytes - Relative Performance: 0x3 Degraded 
LBA Format  2 : Metadata Size: 0   bytes - Data Size: 4096 bytes - Relative Performance: 0 Best  (in use)
LBA Format  3 : Metadata Size: 8   bytes - Data Size: 4096 bytes - Relative Performance: 0x2 Good

Explanation


  • Each format has an id: 0, 1, 2, 3 in this example.
  • There are two data sector sizes - 512 bytes and 4K. Typically the 4K formats provide the best performance and endurance.
  • Metadata - some drives provide the capability to add a few bytes for additional metadata for each sector. This is typically used for T10/DIF CRC.

Format

nvme format /dev/nvme1n1 -l 0

where l represents the LBA format id as listed in nvme id-ns.
on

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous4:10 PM

    helped me format CORSAIR Force Series MP510 to lba sector size 4096

    sudo nvme format /dev/nvme0n1 -l 1

    ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/nvme0
    smartctl 6.6 2016-05-31 r4324 [x86_64-linux-5.0.0-23-generic] (local build)
    Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

    === START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
    Model Number: Force MP510
    Serial Number: 20068239000128955280
    Firmware Version: ECFM22.5
    PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID: 0x1987
    IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x6479a7
    Total NVM Capacity: 1,920,383,410,176 [1.92 TB]
    Unallocated NVM Capacity: 0
    Controller ID: 1
    Number of Namespaces: 1
    Namespace 1 Size/Capacity: 1,920,383,410,176 [1.92 TB]
    Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size: 4096
    Local Time is: Fri Mar 20 23:02:50 2020 UTC
    Firmware Updates (0x12): 1 Slot, no Reset required
    Optional Admin Commands (0x0017): Security Format Frmw_DL *Other*
    Optional NVM Commands (0x005d): Comp DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat *Other*
    Maximum Data Transfer Size: 512 Pages
    Warning Comp. Temp. Threshold: 75 Celsius
    Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold: 80 Celsius

    Supported Power States
    St Op Max Active Idle RL RT WL WT Ent_Lat Ex_Lat
    0 + 11.52W - - 0 0 0 0 0 0
    1 + 8.09W - - 1 1 1 1 0 0
    2 + 6.37W - - 2 2 2 2 0 0
    3 - 0.0490W - - 3 3 3 3 2000 2000
    4 - 0.0018W - - 4 4 4 4 25000 25000

    Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1)
    Id Fmt Data Metadt Rel_Perf
    0 - 512 0 2
    1 + 4096 0 1

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