WD Advanced Format drives are designed specially to optimize the Mac and the latest Windows operating system (For example, the new installation of Windows Vista and Windows 7). Thus, as long as the partition is correct, there will be no performance problems. For compatibility reasons, WD will divide the 4KB physical sector into eight 512-byte logical sectors. said Advanced Format technology can perfectly use the precious storage area on each platter and the storage capacity can be increased by up to 7% to 11 %. This technology utilizes the surface of storage media more effectively by combining data that would have been stored in eight 512-byte sectors into one single sector that is 4096 bytes in length. With the capacity of hard drive continues to increase, the hard drive manufactures decide to increase the sector capacity up to 4KB to meet demand. For a long time, the hard disk uses 512 byte sectors to read and store data. It adopts the latest firmware to perfectly serve the operating system and other facilities. And it also known as 4K Advanced Format.Īdvanced Format can help to greatly increase the storage space. The advanced format technology defines the basic size of all disk sectors.

The International Disk Drive Equipment Materials Association uses the “ Advanced Format” to name a new data structure form. if you don't know what Advanced Format is, you may check out this post. Advanced Format can help to greatly increase the storage space. This article will give you a brief introduction about Advanced Format.

Western digital disk formatting utility