White Papers

14 512e and 4Kn Disk Formats
logos may be seen populating hard drive product labels, product pages, and various literatures to indicate
the usage of AF technologies versus legacy sector size architectures that were used in earlier drives.
The AF emulation logo has one rounded corner and is used on any client or enterprise hard drive that is
equipped with industry-standard emulation techniques. AF 512e is the current standard by which
downward compatibility with legacy sector formats is achieved.
The AF native logo identifies the presence of AF native technologies, where data using long data sector
format standards is both recorded on the drive and passed to the host in the AF format. Unlike AF emulation,
there is no modification of the sector size by which the data is processed or communicated to the host.
Figure 6 Advanced Format emulation logos
Figure 7 Advanced Format native logos
7 Conclusion
The industry transition away from the legacy 512-byte sector is a certainty, and gives hard drive suppliers
another tool for driving improved areal densities. Dell and our customers both benefit from this transition
through higher capacity hard drives and continued reliability.
The key to a smooth transition is a well-educated storage community who can avoid potential
performance pitfalls. The most critical aspect of a smooth and successful transition to 4K sectors used in
Advanced Format is performance. Whether you are building or configuring a computer, do the following
to ensure optimal performance:
 Use an operating system to align partitions on a 4Kn boundary
 Use third-party software or utilities to create hard drive partitions; verify with your Dell team to
ensure the products you are using have been updated and confirmed to be 4K
Together with our industry colleagues and customers, we can make the transition to Advanced Format 4K
sectors smooth and efficient, leveraging the long-term potential benefits for Dell and our customers.
8 Additional resources
http://www.seagate.com/tech-insights/advanced-format-4k-sector-hard-drives-master-ti/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848035(v=vs.85).aspx