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How can I determine the Physical Sector Size (e.g. if i have an Advanced Format drive with 4,096 byte sectors rather than the legacy 512 byte sectors) in Windows 7?
I know that by clicking on a file and get properties we can find out the NTFS Cluster Size, but that's not the same as the hard-drive's sector size.
Note: We ask about Windows 7 because it (and Windows Vista SP1) understand the existence of 4096 Advanced Format hard drives.
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Each sector stores a fixed amount of user-accessible data, traditionally 512 bytes for hard disk drives (HDDs) and 2048 bytes for CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs. Newer HDDs use 4096-byte (4 KiB) sectors, which are known as the Advanced Format (AF).
To change the size of a sector, you must first actually change the size of the sector, and then perform formatting. Go to Tools->HDD->Set Max LBA: In the Sector size field, change the size to the value, usually 512, 520, 528. In the Save into field, select Service area (the default is RAM.
These Intel® Solid State Drives support a 512 byte and 4096 byte (4K) physical sector size. Most operating systems provide optimal system performance when using the larger physical sector size.
A sector has traditional been a fixed 512 byte size, but a few drives have 4096 bytes sectors. A sector is the smallest individual reference-able regions on a disk. The block size refers to the allocation size the file system uses. The common options are 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, or 32678.
You want fsutil. Make sure you run Command Prompt as Admin.
C:\Windows\system32>fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo c: NTFS Volume Serial Number : 0xf4ca5d7cca5d3c54 Version : 3.1 Number Sectors : 0x00000000378fd7ff Total Clusters : 0x0000000006f1faff Free Clusters : 0x00000000000e8821 Total Reserved : 0x0000000000000910 Bytes Per Sector : 512 Bytes Per Physical Sector : 512 Bytes Per Cluster : 4096 Bytes Per FileRecord Segment : 1024 Clusters Per FileRecord Segment : 0 Mft Valid Data Length : 0x00000000196c0000 Mft Start Lcn : 0x00000000000c0000 Mft2 Start Lcn : 0x000000000097ffff Mft Zone Start : 0x000000000051f920 Mft Zone End : 0x000000000051f9a0 RM Identifier: 0652C3D3-7AA9-11DA-ACAC-C80AA9F2FF32 If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
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