Setting "Bytes Per Cluster" size while Windows Installation

[Alexander Birkner]

Hello!

I'm using Packer to create qcow2 qemu images for our OpenStack cluster. We have already build some Linux images and that worked great.

Now I wanna create Windows images and all works fine except the partition creation.

Is there a way to execute CMD scripts before the answer files starts? Or easier preparing the volume before the Windows installation starts?

We have a HPE 3PAR storage and this supports deduplication but to get it work we need a custom cluster size for the NTFS partition of 16k.

If someone is interested HPE describes the best practices there: https://www.hpe.com/h20195/v2/getpdf.aspx/a00006358enw.pdf?ver=1.0

Microsoft only supports to set the "Bytes Per Sector" size in the answer file but not the "Bytes Per Cluster" size which needs to be set to 16k for perfect deduplication.

I can only find the way to do it manually:

1. Start Windows installation

2. Press Shift + F10 to open CMD

    a. diskpart

    b. select disk 0

    c. create partition primary size=1000

    d. format quick e. create partition primary

    f. format quick unit=16K

3. Close CMD

4. Install Windows on created partition

Has someone a good idea how to solve this?

Thank you in advance. 

Regards

Alexander

[Alvaro Miranda Aguilera]

Hello

I am not sure this will work, but I think it should.

Perhaps open a ticket with Microsoft to get a confirmation, after all with the licenses support is included.

You should be able to use:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709639(v=ws.10).aspx

So you can use diskpart

then format like:

format C:\ /FS:NTFS /A:16K /X" (16K cluster size or whatever you feel is right for you)

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Alvaro