Storage Solutions WD Advanced Format HDD !!!

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HailStonE

HailStonE

Forerunner
The new Western Digital Green series HDD's are here with "EARS" in their Model No.

::WD10EARS:: ::WD15EARS:: ::WD20EARS:: ​

WD has quietly introduced Advanced Format on these drives. Its suppose to give slightly better performance & space compared to earlier 512 byte hard drive sector by creating a 4 kilobyte (4,096B) hard drive sector..

But there is a problem.. Under windows environment its not supported by WinXP but only Vista & Win7.. So those of us who are using these new EARS drives & are still on WinXP, they need to align the HDD either by WD Align Utility or Set the offset jumper to 7-8 before using the drive. The jumper should remain there as long as the data is on the HDD.

These new HDD's will perform rather slowly on XP but on Win7 which is incidentally Advanced Format ready, there should not be any problem..

In order to solve the misalignment issue, Western Digital is offering two solutions. The first solution for correcting misaligned partitions is specifically geared towards Win 5.x, and that is an option on the drive itself to use an offset. Through the jumpering of pins 7 and 8 on an Advanced Format drive, the drive controller will use a +1 offset, resolving Win 5.xx’s insistence on starting the first partition at LBA 63 by actually starting it at LBA 64, an aligned position. This is exactly the kind of crude hack it sounds like since it means the operating system is no longer writing to the sector it thinks its writing to, but it’s simple to activate and effective in solving the issue so long as only a single partition is being used. If multiple partitions are being used, then this offset cannot be used as it can negatively impact the later partitions. The offset can also not be removed without repartitioning the drive, as the removal of the offset would break the partition table.

The second method of resolving misaligned partitions is through the use of Western Digital’s WD Align utility, which moves a partition and its data from a misaligned position to an aligned position. This is the recommended solution for using multiple partitions under Win 5.xx, along with correcting any misaligned partitions generated by imaging software. For that matter we’d consider it the recommended solution for single-partition drives being used under Win 5.x too, as there’s no need to worry about offsets and breaking the partition table.
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Source : -

AnandTech: Western Digital?s Advanced Format: The 4K Sector Transition Begins

Storage: WD Caviar Green WD10EARS, WD15EARS, WD20EARS - VRForums - IT Show 2010 | The Most Happening IT & Singapore Lifestyle Community

Advanced Format Hard Drive Download Utility
 
hmm.. actually the method to use these hdd's has not been made clear. I researched and came to these conclusion:
1. On interface level these hdd's are still 512kb sector, but internally 4kb sector. This is done to maintain compatibility with winxp, which still commands 50% of the market.
2. It is just that xp can't format these hdd's optimally. Win vista and 7 can do it. So if you have xp you need to kind of re-format ( a process called alignment by WD) these disk with utility provided by WD. After this you can use these disks in xp as well as any Win Vista/7. The performance will not be affected.
3. If you plan to use ONLY XP, then u have an option to use a jumper on pin 7 & 8 and make a single partition on the disk to use it optimally.
 
The performance in XP will suffer tremendously... Most people have noticed it when it crawls at any read write function.

Its not reformatting but a simple realignment that the WD Align Utility does.

However, there's a problem with Windows XP as partition starts at sector 63, compared to Vista's and 7's 2048, causing the alignment to be out (and hence degraded performance). Those using the new drives in Windows XP have to align the drive before using them in that OS.
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It doesn't matter even if there is any data on the newly formatted HDD, the utility will simply move the data also sector by sector. Only that it will take more time than usual. So its best to align the HDD before putting anything, right after making the partitions when using with WinXP.

With Vista & Win7 it doesn't matter since these OS support Advanced Format.

Its actually only for WinXP & most cloning/imaging softwares that many people use including myself on new HDD's..

The best option is to use the align utility instead of jumper setting 'coz even though it will let you activate Advanced Format on XP.. you cannot use it on Win7 which I believe most people will be on by the end of this year. The moment the jumper is removed for Win7 the partitions will again be misaligned...
 
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