Hi,

I just read [1,2] that Western Digital (and probably others) will start 
to sell disks with an internal block size of 4KB instead of 512 byte.

The article mentions that this might lead to a considerable performance 
impact if the  logical partition alignment is not in sync with the 
physical one ("e.g. if partitions starts at sector 63 wich is not a 
multiple of 4KB" [1]):
"If a block of 4KB should be written, which is (logically) aligned, but 
physically in fact 2 sectors, then both physical sectors will need to be 
read, partially modified and then written back which leads to a serious 
performance hit." [1]

Any comments from someone who has a good knowledge of this area? Will 
this affect OpenBSD?

regards,
Robert

[1] (german) 
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Festplatten-mit-4-KByte-Sektorgroesse-887759.html
[2] http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/whitepapers/en/2579-771430.pdf