Disk drives supported include Standard format, 512e format, and Advanced 4K Native format with sectors, as follows:

Format	Physical Sectors	Logical Sectors
Standard	512B	512B
512e	4KiB	512B
Advanced 4K Native	4KiB	4KiB

Stratus recommends using disks with the 4K sector size for better performance. everRun systems support 4K sector size disks in native mode. When using 4K storage, observe the following restrictions:

• Each storage group must contain logical disks of the same sector size. For example, you cannot add a 4K logical disk to a 512B storage group.
• The sector size of a storage group is automatically defined by the sector size of the first logical disk that you add to the group. After the sector size of the storage group is set, you cannot change it. You would need to create a new storage group with logical disks of the new sector size.

• Because the sector size of a storage group affects the sector size of your VM volumes, it is important to plan your storage groups carefully:

  • A storage group with the 512B sector size supports only 512B VM volumes.
  • A storage group with the 4K sector size supports 4K or 512B VM volumes.

  Note that the boot volume for each VM must be 512B, regardless of the storage group's sector size. Only data volumes can use the 4K sector size. Ensure that your guest operating systems support 4K volumes before creating or attaching them.

In addition, note the following restrictions of the Initial Storage Group:

• If you add a second logical disk to the default Initial Storage Group, its size must be greater than 32.2GB.

• everRun software prevents all non-volatile memory express (NVMe) devices from being included in the Initial Storage Group because not all BIOS and UEFI systems allow NVMe devices to be bootable devices.

When planning your system configuration, confirm that your storage configuration meets these requirements and then return to Site and System Preparation.