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Advanced Format
Advanced Format (AF) is any disk sector format used to store data in HDDs, SSDs and SSHDs that exceeds 528 bytes per sector, frequently 4096, 4112, 4160, or 4224-byte sectors. Larger sectors of an Advanced Format Drive (AFD) enable the integration of stronger error correction algorithms to maintain data integrity at higher storage densities.
The use of long data sectors was suggested in 1998 in a technical paper issued by the National Storage Industry Consortium (NSIC) calling attention to the conflict between continuing increases in areal density and the traditional 512-byte-per-sector format used in hard disk drives. Without revolutionary breakthroughs in magnetic recording system technologies, areal densities, and with them the storage capacities, hard disk drives were projected to stagnate.
The storage industry trade organization, International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association (IDEMA), responded by organizing the IDEMA Long Data Sector Committee in 2000, where IDEMA and leading hardware and software suppliers collaborated on the definition and development of standards governing long data sectors, including methods by which compatibility with legacy computing components would be supported. In August 2005, Seagate shipped test drives with 1K physical sectors to industry partners for testing. In 2010, industry standards for the first official generation of long data sectors using a configuration of 4096 bytes per sector, or 4K, were completed. All hard drive manufacturers committed to shipping new hard drive platforms for desktop and notebook products with the Advanced Format sector formatting by January 2011.
Advanced Format was coined to cover what was expected to become several generations of long-data-sector technologies, and its logo was created to distinguish long-data-sector–based hard disk drives from those using legacy 512-byte sector. Enterprise disks can be formatted with additional 8-byte Data Integrity Fields, resulting in a 520 or 528-byte physical sectors.
Generation-one Advanced Format, 4K sector technology, uses the storage surface media more efficiently by combining data that would have been stored in eight 512-byte sectors into one single sector that is 4096 bytes in length. Key design elements of the traditional 512-byte sector architecture are maintained, specifically, the identification and synchronization marks at the beginning and the error correction coding (ECC) area at the end of the sector. Between the sector header and ECC areas, eight 512-byte sectors are combined, eliminating the need for redundant header areas between each individual chunk of 512-byte data. The Long Data Sector Committee selected the 4K block length for the first generation AF standard for several reasons, including its correspondence to the paging size used by processors and some operating systems as well as its correlation to the size of standard transactions in relational database systems.
Format efficiency gains resulting from the 4K sector structure range from 7 to 11 percent in physical platter space. The 4K format provides enough space to expand the ECC field from 50 to 100 bytes to accommodate new ECC algorithms. The enhanced ECC coverage improves the ability to detect and correct processed data errors beyond the 50-byte defect length associated with the 512-byte sector legacy format. The Advanced Format standard employs the same gap, sync and address mark configuration as the traditional 512-byte sector layout, but combines eight 512-byte sectors into one data field.
Having a huge number of legacy 512-byte-sector–based hard disk drives shipped up to the middle of 2010, many systems, programs and applications accessing the hard disk drive are designed around the 512-byte-per-sector convention. Early engagement with the Long Data Sector Committee provided the opportunity for component and software suppliers to prepare for the transition to Advanced Format.
For example, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2 (with certain hotfixes installed) support 512e format drives (but not 4Kn), as do contemporary versions of FreeBSD and Linux. Mac OS X Tiger and onwards can use Advanced Format drives and OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 additionally supports encrypting those. Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 also support 4Kn Advanced Format. Oracle Solaris 10 and 11 support 4Kn and 512e hard disk drives for non-root ZFS file systems, while version 11.1 provides installation and boot support for 512e devices. Prior to Windows Vista, Windows 2000 and Windows XP use 4096 bytes as default allocation unit size when use NTFS to format local hard disks, but do not align to 4096-byte boundaries.
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Advanced Format AI simulator
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Advanced Format
Advanced Format (AF) is any disk sector format used to store data in HDDs, SSDs and SSHDs that exceeds 528 bytes per sector, frequently 4096, 4112, 4160, or 4224-byte sectors. Larger sectors of an Advanced Format Drive (AFD) enable the integration of stronger error correction algorithms to maintain data integrity at higher storage densities.
The use of long data sectors was suggested in 1998 in a technical paper issued by the National Storage Industry Consortium (NSIC) calling attention to the conflict between continuing increases in areal density and the traditional 512-byte-per-sector format used in hard disk drives. Without revolutionary breakthroughs in magnetic recording system technologies, areal densities, and with them the storage capacities, hard disk drives were projected to stagnate.
The storage industry trade organization, International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association (IDEMA), responded by organizing the IDEMA Long Data Sector Committee in 2000, where IDEMA and leading hardware and software suppliers collaborated on the definition and development of standards governing long data sectors, including methods by which compatibility with legacy computing components would be supported. In August 2005, Seagate shipped test drives with 1K physical sectors to industry partners for testing. In 2010, industry standards for the first official generation of long data sectors using a configuration of 4096 bytes per sector, or 4K, were completed. All hard drive manufacturers committed to shipping new hard drive platforms for desktop and notebook products with the Advanced Format sector formatting by January 2011.
Advanced Format was coined to cover what was expected to become several generations of long-data-sector technologies, and its logo was created to distinguish long-data-sector–based hard disk drives from those using legacy 512-byte sector. Enterprise disks can be formatted with additional 8-byte Data Integrity Fields, resulting in a 520 or 528-byte physical sectors.
Generation-one Advanced Format, 4K sector technology, uses the storage surface media more efficiently by combining data that would have been stored in eight 512-byte sectors into one single sector that is 4096 bytes in length. Key design elements of the traditional 512-byte sector architecture are maintained, specifically, the identification and synchronization marks at the beginning and the error correction coding (ECC) area at the end of the sector. Between the sector header and ECC areas, eight 512-byte sectors are combined, eliminating the need for redundant header areas between each individual chunk of 512-byte data. The Long Data Sector Committee selected the 4K block length for the first generation AF standard for several reasons, including its correspondence to the paging size used by processors and some operating systems as well as its correlation to the size of standard transactions in relational database systems.
Format efficiency gains resulting from the 4K sector structure range from 7 to 11 percent in physical platter space. The 4K format provides enough space to expand the ECC field from 50 to 100 bytes to accommodate new ECC algorithms. The enhanced ECC coverage improves the ability to detect and correct processed data errors beyond the 50-byte defect length associated with the 512-byte sector legacy format. The Advanced Format standard employs the same gap, sync and address mark configuration as the traditional 512-byte sector layout, but combines eight 512-byte sectors into one data field.
Having a huge number of legacy 512-byte-sector–based hard disk drives shipped up to the middle of 2010, many systems, programs and applications accessing the hard disk drive are designed around the 512-byte-per-sector convention. Early engagement with the Long Data Sector Committee provided the opportunity for component and software suppliers to prepare for the transition to Advanced Format.
For example, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2 (with certain hotfixes installed) support 512e format drives (but not 4Kn), as do contemporary versions of FreeBSD and Linux. Mac OS X Tiger and onwards can use Advanced Format drives and OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 additionally supports encrypting those. Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 also support 4Kn Advanced Format. Oracle Solaris 10 and 11 support 4Kn and 512e hard disk drives for non-root ZFS file systems, while version 11.1 provides installation and boot support for 512e devices. Prior to Windows Vista, Windows 2000 and Windows XP use 4096 bytes as default allocation unit size when use NTFS to format local hard disks, but do not align to 4096-byte boundaries.