Support for 4K Sector Hard Drives

Hello James Bond 007,

Thank you for your interesting question. I will be happy to assist you.

At the moment none of our products support 4 KB sectors, but I would like to forward this question to our Development team, so that in the future such support is implemented in our software.

Please let me know if you have additional questions.

Thank you.

Anton wrote:

Hello James Bond 007,

Thank you for your interesting question. I will be happy to assist you.

At the moment none of our products support 4 KB sectors, but I would like to forward this question to our Development team, so that in the future such support is implemented in our software.

Please let me know if you have additional questions.

Thank you.

Absolutely no support, you say? Including Backup and Recovery?

That is disappointing. I believe you must be aware that these 4K sector hard drives will be the future and soon other hard drive manufacturers will start to release these types of hard drives. I hope you will add support for these hard drives as soon as possible, perhaps in a future version.

Hello James Bond 007,

Thank you for getting back to us.

At the moment, there is no support at all I am afraid. I am sure however, that we will definitely support this feature in order to accommodate our customers.

Let me know if you have additional questions please.

Thank you.

Anton wrote:

Hello James Bond 007,

Thank you for getting back to us.

At the moment, there is no support at all I am afraid. I am sure however, that we will definitely support this feature in order to accommodate our customers.

Let me know if you have additional questions please.

Thank you.

There is one more question.

At present I have followed the Western Digital instructions and used WD Align to realign the partitions after I clone the contents from my old hard disks to the WD Advanced Format drives. If in the future I need to clone the data on these new drives (partitions already realigned) to another 4K sector hard drive, can I still use the current True Image products or must I wait for a new version which natively supports these 4K sector drives?

Hello James Bond 007,

Unfortunately, we can't tell you if native 4k sector support will be implemented in the current version of Acronis software. 

Please reply to this thread if you have any additional questions.

Thank you.

Ilya wrote:

Hello James Bond 007,

Unfortunately, we can't tell you if native 4k sector support will be implemented in the current version of Acronis software. 

Please reply to this thread if you have any additional questions.

Thank you.

You do not understand my question.

What I want to know is, if I need to clone the data on my current Western Digital drives to a new 4K Sector drive in the future, can I use the current Acronis True Image products or must I wait for a new version?

Hello James Bond 007,

Sorry for not being clear.

If 4K sector support won't be implemented in the current version of Acronis software, you'll need to wait for a new version of the software that will work with such drives correctly.

Thank you.

Ilya wrote:

Hello James Bond 007,

Sorry for not being clear.

If 4K sector support won't be implemented in the current version of Acronis software, you'll need to wait for a new version of the software that will work with such drives correctly.

Thank you.

Oh? But the fact is, apparently I was able to clone the data from an older hard disk (a Seagate 1.5TB with 512 byte sector) to my WD 2 TB 4K Sector hard disk using Acronis True Image successfully. The only thing is I have to use the WD Align utility (made by Acronis apparently) to realign the partitions or else bad performance will result.

So, are you sure your statement is correct? Because the current generation of WD EARS hard drives (4K sector) is able to simulate 512 byte sector in firmware.

I would suggest you test your current software on these drives and report what you find.

Hello James Bond 007,

That WD Align System Utility was made for Western Digital hard drives only. And I can state once again that currently 4k sector support is not implemented yet.

Thank you for your suggestion about testing, I'll forward it to the responsible department.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Thank you. 

Haha Sorry but I think the moderator and OP have misaligned communication on this issue :)
The problem of course is that afaik not any system(BIOS/RAID-controllers etc) really supports 4Kbyte sectors as it is now.
That would require a complete (and overdue) overhaul of how the BIOS interacts with disks. The advanced format drives gets around this by simulating the old 512 byte interface.

All the problems we have with alignment etc stem from this simulation of beeing able to read/write data to 512 byte sectors when the drives cannot really do that. That is why we have such grave compatability and performance issues.
That is why we need special programs like the ones from Acronis for aligning the drives.
Solid state drives (SSD) have similar issues. We will have to live with this until some new standardized way of interfacing with drives is implemented.
The problems will also continue to grow as more manufacturers move to other sector sizes. So we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg with this and it is a great opportunity for the company that can bring out an easy to use product.

Of course your software supports these drives the same way as they support any standard 512 byte drive. However they do not support 4Kbyte drives natively if that is what you mean? Neither does anyone else.

Hello Michael,

they do not support 4Kbyte drives natively if that is what you mean

That's exactly what I mean and that is why separate utility was made for Western Digital.

Thank you.

So I think I may take it that you do not know the answer to my question as yet.

Judging from my own experiences with these Western Digital drives, it seems to me that the current Acronis True Image products can be used with them (can write to them at least), but since the current Acronis programs all create misaligned partitions on these drives, the WD Align utility is necessary afterwards to ensure optimal performance.

Of course, I would like confirmation that this is indeed the case.

Now I just learn that Western Digital has released 2.5TB and 3TB Caviar Green hard drives. I am interested in these and may get one of these in the future. Acronis has also released True Image Home 2011 and Disk Director 11 Advanced.

So I believe I should post this question again : Does True Image Home 2011 and Disk Director 11 Advanced support 4K Sector hard drives natively? Does True Image Home 2011 and Disk Director 11 Advanced support these high capacity (larger than 2TiB) hard drives? If I want to clone the data on a hard disk of less than or equal to 2TB to one of these hard drives, can it be done with True Image Home 2011?

If you do not know the answer at this time, that's fine, but in such a case I urge you to test the softwares with these hard drives and tell us what you find.

I have also used the "True Image WD Edition" made by Acronis to be used solely on these WD drives. It seems to be based on Acronis True Image Home 2011, is that so?

I can't use DD11 with USB-HDD Freecom 120GB. This HDD has 4KB sectors. Error: Format impossible.
LOG show attachment.
What can I do?

Hello James Bond 007 and Juergen!

Thank you for your comments!

Dear James Bond 007, thank you for sharing your concerns with us!

Acronis True Image Home 2011 and Acronis Disk Director 11.0 Home do support 4K drives, and definitely support the capasity you've specified (there are actually no capasity limitation, so we don't expect any issues with this scenario).

True Image Western Digital Edition doesn't support 4K though: it's been based on Acronis True Image Home 2010, so 4K support wasn't released there yet.

Dear Juergen! Welcome to our Forum, we're glad to greet you here! I understand your concern, and will do my best to help you.

Unfortunately due to the lack of diagnostic information it's hard to say for sure what exactly went wrong. So this situation requires investigation. Please gather: 

1. Acronis Info from the problem machine
2. Acronis Report
3. Exact sequence of steps performed

After that please kindly contact support directly with the information attached. Keep in mind that should there be any procrastination with the reply, you can always specify us the case number. We will do our best to speed up the process.

Should you need anything else or have any further questions - feel free to contact us at your earliest convenience, we will be happy to help you!

Thank you!

Yana:

I'm currently on the phone with your tech support - priority paid support - had to go thru two levels of techs to find anyone that even partially understood this issue.

The second guy finally mentioned this KB article and stated that Home 2011 does NOT support 4k ADV format from WD.

I used the WD version of True Image, tih_s_e_14010.exe and it seemed to work. The WD Align - Powered by Acronis does seem to show the cloned drives are correctly aligned.

So, again, does Home 2011 support WD's Adv Format?

This is going to be an issue that requires concise tech support - in my opinion all this RoHS green crap is just that.

For instance - lead free solder-
Read this:
http://www.sigcon.com/Pubs/news/10_01.htm

this guy is one of the GODs for PCB layout stuff, along with Eric Bogatin and Happy Holden (father of DFM)

His book High Speed Digital Design is considered by us hardware folk as the bible for understanding good layout.

Note the links to NASA's whisker site:
http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/

Note the links to the EPA report on SAC:
http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/dfe/pubs/solder/lca/index.htm

Note that I CANNOT use lead free (I design weapon stuff)
due to the concerns of whisker growth

Note that Swatch pushed an exemption thru:
"This came from studies referenced by Swatch in their application for exemption. Swatch was seeking some kind of rule they could use to exempt themselves without raising the issue for everyone. They found some research support for the idea that whiskers don't grow beyond 800 microns. Based on that, they postulated that a 650 micron pitch was unsafe, and should be exempted, but 800 microns was fine and didn't need exemption. Now you go look at the picture in Fig. 2 and tell me that there is a hard upper limit on whisker length. I don't think so."

So as to the Zero Carbon thing - talk to a CM that runs a Lead Free line... ask Mariss at Geckodrives how fun it was to get his line to do LF.

Higher reflow == more energy //carbon footprint bye bye...

my site: http://home.comcast.net/~ajawamnet/wc/wamcover.htm

hey bond:

go to this page:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/advancedformat/

after doing the left [panel q/a thing you get this:

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=805&lang=en

which links to the Acronis exe file I mentioned above....

Eventually you may end up here:
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en

Which has a link to the WD version of Acronis that no one at Acronis seems to know anything about...

Also - WD offers another Acronis based product that again no one at Acronis seems to know anything about - the aforementioned WD Align - Powered by Acronis :
AcronisAlignTool_s_e_314.exe

this shows whether the clone worked and aligned the drives, and whether the drive even supports 4K sectors.

This is quickly becoming an issue of ignorance with the various HD SW tool companies... when i get different answers to the same question in a single tech support call that is a problem.

Here's the link for the Acronis align:

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=128&type=downloa…

Again i state this as an issue due to the fact that a lot of the systems I work with use these older 512 limit OS's and you can't just easily change/upgrade them due to C&A issues - to get a system accredited takes massive $$$ and time. One change like an OS (in some cases service packs) will render the C&A invalid.

Just from the fact that these systems are so sensitive, disaster recovery is paramount. I know of systems still running NT 3.51 for SCADA in really critical applications. in fact a lot of the ATM's out there are still running OS2 - yep IBM OS2.

A lot of these systems use cold standby sleds that are system clones. Hey and don't flame me for this, I didn't develop their disaster recovery plan.

look at this for a good clarification on the terminology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_sector
I feel a lot of posters and Acronis/techsupport are not getting through to eachother and it seems to be about not agreeing on the terminology used.

Does Acronis support drives that are interfaced with true 4K sectors (not used in windows applications) ? Or are you really supporting what is refered to as "Advanced Format 512e"? Where the drive emulates a 512kb sector size? This emulation is what causes all the alignment problems but from what I understand we have to live with it until BIOS(UEFI soon) and OS support various sector sizes (I mean it is bound to change with new advances storage media right?)

From my understanding noone at the moment supports true Advanced Format Drives?

Do you support moving/resizing/alignment of GPT partitions? This did not work in the 2010 programs...

I ended up switching back to 512kb drives since I could not get AFS drives to work in my RAID...

Yana wrote:

Dear James Bond 007, thank you for sharing your concerns with us!

Acronis True Image Home 2011 and Acronis Disk Director 11.0 Home do support 4K drives, and definitely support the capacity you've specified (there are actually no capacity limitation, so we don't expect any issues with this scenario).

True Image Western Digital Edition doesn't support 4K though: it's been based on Acronis True Image Home 2010, so 4K support wasn't released there yet.

Thank you for your response. So I take it you are saying I can use True Image Home 2011 and Disk Director 11 Home on these >2TiB hard drives and I can clone the data from a hard drive to one of these hard drives using True Image Home 2011.

As to the True Image WD Edition, I used it to clone the data from a Seagate 1TB drive to a WD 2TB Advanced Format drive and succeeded, as I expected. So I am positive that the WD Edition does support these WD Advanced Format drives which uses 4K sectors.

wayne mitzen wrote:

hey bond:

go to this page:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/advancedformat/

after doing the left [panel q/a thing you get this:

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=805&lang=en

which links to the Acronis exe file I mentioned above....

Eventually you may end up here:
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en

Which has a link to the WD version of Acronis that no one at Acronis seems to know anything about...

Also - WD offers another Acronis based product that again no one at Acronis seems to know anything about - the aforementioned WD Align - Powered by Acronis : AcronisAlignTool_s_e_314.exe

This shows whether the clone worked and aligned the drives, and whether the drive even supports 4K sectors.

This is quickly becoming an issue of ignorance with the various HD SW tool companies... when i get different answers to the same question in a single tech support call that is a problem.

Thank you. Actually I have already made bootable CD versions of True Image WD Edition and WD Align, and have actually used them on several WD Advanced Format hard drives successfully.

Just a quick observation here.

Using WinXP Pro Corp w/SP3 - windows explorer to copy to a WD external HD that is 4k takes about three times longer than normal. I will need to try both the WD TI and align software.

I am not clear on the align software. does it need to be run just once or after EVERY update to the data on the HD?

Also I seem to understand that windows 7 does NOT have a problem with 4k HDs.

Seems like MS wants to sell a lot of windows 7 to SUPPORT these 4k HDs.

This has been a most informative posting....

FYI: Vista SP1 was the first Microsoft OS with 4K Advanced Format support
btw Disk Director 11 supports 4k, so going by that logic it should also be supported in true image 2011

more info
http://seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/tp613_transition_to_4k_sectors.p…
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/WhitePapers/ENG/2579-771430.pdf

Jerry Smith wrote:

Just a quick observation here.

Using WinXP Pro Corp w/SP3 - windows explorer to copy to a WD external HD that
is 4k takes about three times longer than normal. I will need to try both the WD TI and align software.

I am not clear on the align software. does it need to be run just once or after EVERY
update to the data on the HD?

Also I seem to understand that windows 7 does NOT have a problem with 4k HDs.

Seems like MS wants to sell a lot of windows 7 to SUPPORT these 4k HDs.

This has been a most informative posting....

You are using a WD external hard disk of what size?

I am using 3 WD Caviar Green Advanced Format drives (1.5 TB and two 2 TB). The fact is, if you use a cloning software (such as Norton Ghost or the older versions of Acronis True Image Home) to clone the data from a hard disk to one of these WD Advanced Format drives, you will need to run the WD Align utility on them ONCE to align the partitions to the Windows Vista/7 partitioning rules. After the partitions are aligned you will not need to run it again unless you change the partitions on the disk.

If you do not do this, the performance of the drive will be severely affected. And yes, you are right that Windows 7 does not have a problem with them, as long as you use Windows 7 itself to create the partitions on the hard drive.

Or, if you use the True Image WD Edition to clone the data to one of these drives, then the partitions will be automatically aligned and you will not need to run the WD Align utility afterwards. I have done this myself and personally seen that the partitions are aligned on the WD drive.

By the way, the new WD Caviar Green 2.5 TB and 3 TB and the Hitachi 3 TB drives also requires that you run such a Align utility after cloning the data from an old drive to these drives.

Dear Sir:
i'm having the same problem, my laptop is a Thinkpad W500 and i had a 320 GB seagate drive installed and now i have bought a 750 GB seagate drive.
i downloaded the application in Seagate website for cloning which is powered by Acronis, and after the cloning was the the new hard drive windows 7 updates would not work.
i have tried many solutions and none worked. so i found this post and as it seems you say the Acronis True Image Home 2011 works fine with 4K hard drives, so i just wanted to ask that is the application for seagate based on 2011 version and if i downlaod the 2011 version from acronis website directly, will it solve my problem?