Preparing Advanced Format hard drives for Microsoft Windows installations on HP Business Notebook PCs, Workstations, and Desktop PCs

Executive summary

Designed for both SMB/enterprise users and consumers, this white paper provides instructions for

preparing an Advanced Format hard drive for a Microsoft® Windows® installation on an HP

Business Notebook PC, Desktop PC, Workstation, or Retail Point-of-Sale (POS) system.

Historically, hard disk drives (HDDs) have used 512-byte sectors; however, this sector size is now

limiting HDD capacity. To address this limitation, the industry is moving to Advanced Format drives

with 4096-byte (4-KB) sectors – eight times larger than current drive technology. With 4-KB sectors,

less space is wasted on the physical media, making the drive easier to manufacture and able to

support higher capacities.

First-generation Advanced Format drives retain backwards-compatibility by using external SATA

communications based on a 512-byte sector; however, these drives – also known as 512e

drives –

operate internally at 4 KB. Thus, any PC with a SATA interface can use an Advanced Format drive;

however, depending on the operating system (OS) being installed, extra steps may be required to

optimize performance.

If you are using an Advanced Format driver with an OS that is not Advanced Format-aware, you

should take steps to align logical sectors (OS) with physical sectors (disk media) in order to optimize

I/O performance.

This white paper presents a range of scenarios involving the use of Advanced Format drives and

describes the actions you should take to optimize the performance of your HP Business Notebook PC,

Desktop PC, Workstation, or Retail POS system. It also outlines HP tools that provide disk information

and support partition alignment, and provides a “Frequently asked questions” section, as well as an

appendix with technical background.

Identifying an Advanced Format drive

Options for identifying an Advanced Format drive include:

 Running the HP Unattended Advanced Format Hard Disk Information Tool (all HP systems) or the

interactive HP Advanced Format Hard Drive Information Tool (HP Business Notebook PCs only)

provides a range of information about a particular HDD, including vendor, model, capacity and

whether or not it is an Advanced Format drive

 Reviewing the label on the HDD to determine if the Advanced Format logo (shown in Figure 1) is

present

For more information on disk information and partition alignment tools for HP systems, refer to

Summary of HP Advanced Format tools.

Where “e” indicates that these drives emulate conventional drives, maintaining backwards-compatibility with current computers by operating

internally at 4 KB and externally at 512 bytes