NVMe Namespaces - Little Known Cool Features of (most) NVMe and User-Programmable Endurance

One other interesting thing about this output, is it looks like this drive supports multiple sector sizes. From some nvme-cli info I found, which includes an explanation on how to use ‘nvme format’ to change from say 512B to 4096B]() :

nvme id-ns /dev/nvme0n1

NVME Identify Namespace 1:
… (truncated).
lbaf 0 : ms:0 lbads:9 rp:0x2 (in use)
lbaf 1 : ms:0 lbads:12 rp:0

This drive is currently using 512B formatting and 4096B formatting is supported.

The full discussion, as well as reformatting details are here:

Conversely, looking at the same on a Samsung 980 Pro, I just see:

$ sudo nvme id-ns /dev/nvme1n1
NVME Identify Namespace 1:

lbaf 0 : ms:0 lbads:9 rp:0 (in use)

… so no extra format support there.

Anyway, while looking around at this stuff, and trying to find info – and coming to the realization that the non-enterprise NVMe drives I have are not going to let me play with setting up namespaces to create “drives” to use with ZFS – I put together this table, and list of sources, detailing some drive namespace compatibility:

`

Model Form Factor Supported namespaces Reference
WD Blue SN570 1 1
WD WDS500G2X0C (SN700) 1 1
WD Ultrastar SN640 U.2 128 3
WD Ultrastar SN840 U.2 128 3
HGST SN260 128 1
Intel Optane 900P 1 1
Intel Optane P1600X 1 2
Intel Optane P4801X 1 2
Intel Optane 5800X (fw. > L0310200) 128 2,4
Intel P4500 1 7
Intel P4510 / P4610 U.2 128 (non-Opal SKUs, maybe fw dependent) 3,6,7
Intel P4610 128 1
Intel P5500 (Dell firmware) 128 1
Intel D7-P5510 (SSDPF2KX076TZ) U.2 128 4
Kingston DC1500M U.2 64 8
Kioxia CM6 U.2 64 3
Kioxia CD6 U.2 16 3
Micron 7400 (MTFDKBG3T8TDZ) M.2 22110 128 4
Micron 9200 U.2 1 1
Micron 9300 U.2 32 1,3
Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 1 1
Samsung 980 Pro M.2 1 4
Samsung PM983 1 (maybe fw dependent, upgrade in DC Toolkit?) 4
Samsung PM9A3 U.2 32 1
Samsung PM1725a AIC (depends on fw?) 5
Samsung PM1733/PM1735 U.2 / AIC 64 3
SK Hynix PC601 HFS512GD9TNG-L2A0A 1 1

1 NVMe SSD namespaces support table | TrueNAS Community
2 Which Intel® Optane™ Data Center Drives Support Multiple...
3 https://web.archive.org/web/20221124073644/https://www.drewthorst.com/posts/nvme/namespaces/readme/
4 nvme-cli test
5 List of NVMe drives that support namespaces or other ways to divide one up | ServeTheHome Forums
6 https://web.archive.org/web/20210117005416/https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000038017/memory-and-storage/data-center-ssds.html#blade-product-list-show-content
7 How can I create multiple namespaces on DC P4510 o... - Page 2 - Solidigm - 9918
8 https://www.kingston.com/datasheets/sedc1500m_en.pdf

Here’s something about UEFI support for namespaces, although it talks about “management” of namespaces, not about UEFI support for bootable devices in multiple namespaces:
AMI Enables NVMe Namespace Management in Aptio® V UEFI BIOS Firmware

HTH

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