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Zoned Block Device Partition Support

Support for partition tables on zoned block devices depends on the kernel version being used.

Kernel Versions 4.10 to 5.4​

All kernels from version 4.10.0 (first kernel including zoned block device support) to version 5.4 support partition tables on zoned block devices. For these kernels, the start sector and the size of the partitions on the zoned block device must be aligned to the zone boundaries of the device. In other words: a partition must start with the first sector of a zone and end on the last sector of a zone.

A zone report operation on a partition device (as opposed to a zone report for the entire container device) reports zone sector information (zone start sector and write pointer position) relative to the partition start sector. Similarly, a zone reset operation must specify a target zone range relative to the partition start sector. In effect, a zoned block device partition can be treated exactly like a regular disk: the partition zoned block device is used with a start sector of 0. All zone and IO operations will be executed correctly, taking into account the partition start sector and size.

For host-aware zoned block device models, creating partitions using standard tools like gparted works as expected. Because these standard partitioning tools do not have zoned-block-device support implemented, users must manually align the partitions to the zone's boundaries in order to satisfy kernel constraints. This alignment is not automatically done by the partitioning tool.

The lack of zoned-block device support for partition management tools can result in write-IO errors for host-managed zoned disk models. If the zones that are used to store the partition table data are sequential write-required zones, then the partition tool must be able to write-align (1) the partition table information on the disk with (2) the write pointer position of the zones to be written. For instance, with the GUID partition table format, if the last zone of the disk is a sequential write required zone, the secondary GPT header and table entries will not necessarily be writable at the end of the disk LBA space (the end of the last zone of the disk). Although performing this alignment, manually without support from the partition management tool, is possible, such a procedure would be very difficult and unreliable.

We recommend using the dm-linear device mapper target to isolate smaller portions of large host-managed devices, as this is a better solution than partitions. Users should assume that partitions are not supported for host-managed zoned block devices.

Kernel Versions 5.5 and later​

As of kernel version 5.5.0, partition support for host-managed zoned block devices is no longer provided. If a well-formatted partition table is detected on a host-managed zoned block device, the kernel will ignore it and will not create the block device files that represent the partitions.

For host-aware zoned block devices, partitions are still supported. However, the kernel behavior differs from previous versions. If a valid partition table is detected on a host-aware zoned device, the device zone model is changed to none, which disables the use of the device and the use of its partitions as zoned block devices. In other words, a partitioned host-aware device is, under these conditions, always turned into a logical regular block device. Deleting the device partition table will re-enable the use of the host-aware device as a zoned block device.