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4k sectors

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I just saw that some new drives from western digital are now using 4k sectors.

I am currently using acronis true image using only the bootable cd to make images. When will (unless it is already) true image support 4k sectors in the bootable disc?

Thanks
Alex

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Are you sure you mean sectors and not clusters - the default cluster size for NTFS is 4k.

Thanks Seekforever ... never knew there was such an animal. I don't think I'll be getting one of those drive any time soon. LOL.

We all will if we want >2 TB drives. That day is not very far off...

Yeah, it is really 4k sectors.

It is really available on some drives. I wanted to buy a 1tb drive this morning... A WD caviar green for backup and I realised that there is 2 models... one with 4k sectors and one standard....

So... is it supported in true image, if not, will it be and when?...

Thanks a lot

Alex

Alexandre Gendron wrote:
Yeah, it is really 4k sectors.

It is really available on some drives. I wanted to buy a 1tb drive this morning... A WD caviar green for backup and I realised that there is 2 models... one with 4k sectors and one standard....

So... is it supported in true image, if not, will it be and when?...

Thanks a lot

Alex

Alexandre Gendron wrote:
Yeah, it is really 4k sectors. It is really available on some drives. I wanted to buy a 1tb drive this morning... A WD caviar green for backup and I realised that there is 2 models... one with 4k sectors and one standard.... So... is it supported in true image, if not, will it be and when?... Thanks a lot Alex

Alexandre Gendron wrote:
Yeah, it is really 4k sectors. It is really available on some drives. I wanted to buy a 1tb drive this morning... A WD caviar green for backup and I realised that there is 2 models... one with 4k sectors and one standard.... So... is it supported in true image, if not, will it be and when?... Thanks a lot Alex

I came looking for an answer to this today, but I guess it's still an open item. More information: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=805〈=en http://support.wdc.com/product/downloadsw.asp?sid=122 I wonder if the download software isn't an Acronis product. Incidentally, Amazon has a good price on this 1.5 TB Drive today (at least). http://xrl.in/4mln Check out the comments on Amazon.  In particular, This one:  

 More net space and other advances for the popular Western Digital Caviar Green drives, but XP users approach with caution, February 11, 2010

By  snapcrackle "snapcrackle" (United States)

THE QUICK TAKE: The WD15EARS is a new (shipping 12-2009) version of Western Digital's popular and successful

WDxxEADS Caviar Green series

of drives. It's a very good drive, but may need more thought than usual about whether it's the right drive for you.

The Caviar Green drives offer low power consumption, low noise and moderate operating temperatures, while still maintaining performace good enough for many applications, such as networked storage. This new WDxxEARS series uses more dense 500GB platters - so a 1.5TB drive has just three platters, and several drives up to 2TB are available - and has 64MB of cache.

ADVANCED FORMAT: There's another change as well. WD is using this series to transition to 4KB sectors on the hard drive; they call it WD Advanced Format technology. The long-term goal is to improve the efficiency of large hard drives, but as a transitional move they still trying to accomodate the 512MB sectors that Windows XP uses. So the drive emulates that, using 512MB logical sectors. However, they still claim that Advanced Format provides a 7-11% increase in formatted disk space, and improvement in burst speeds.

ISSUES WITH XP: While that sounds like all good news, it turns out that many XP users need to use the WD Align software to setup the drive, which can be time consuming and create some potential issues in formatting and partitioning the drive, and in finding tools to do that.

The exception is if you are using a single partition for a clean install - then there is an option to set a jumper on the drive before installing. WD has a table which summarizes installation at their "Advanced Format Hard Drive Download Utility" web page - anyone buying this drive should be sure to review that page.

So less technical users may want to believe WD when they say "WD Advanced Format drives are specifically optimized for Mac and the latest Windows operating systems such as Windows Vista and Windows 7." This drive might not a good choice for some XP users - you'll be fine with the tried and true EADS series.

VISTA AND WINDOWS 7: Further, cloning and partitioning tools might present issues with Windows Vista and Windows 7 as well. You can read more about the AF transition at the WD web page mentioned above in the AnandTech article, "Western Digital's Advanced Format: The 4K Sector Transition Begins." They note that as of 12-2009 there might not be any commercially available cloning and imaging tools that would work with these drives.

LINUX AND MAC: The Anandtech article also states that current versions of Linux and Mac OS X are not affected by issues with Advanced Format, but discussions online suggest that Linux users seem to face some complexities on how to best partition and format to avoid mis-alignment.

OTHER INFO: The WD site has a good whitepaper on Advanced Format. Tom's Hardware has a good discussion about the earlier EADS series in an article entitled "Caviar Green, WD10EADS, And 1 TB," with power and performance info; and some interesting points if you Google "Pros And Cons Of Going Green."