Advanced Format Readiness Checklist

Are you ready for Advanced Format?

  • Are you a developer of software who creates or modifies hard drive partitions, or enables hard drive duplication, cloning or imaging?
  • Are you planning to interface with, integrate or use a 4K, Advanced Format drive that supports 512-byte emulation?
  • If yes, has your application, system or offering been optimized to accommodate the relationship between 512-byte emulation in Advanced Format hard drives and hard drive partition alignment?
  • Are you considering using 4k native Advanced Format hard drives in a storage solution?
  • Do you use or offer a software solution that frequently issues write operations in data-package sizes less than 4K bytes?
  • Are the block sizes written by the software applications you use, support or distribute evenly divisible by multiple of 4K-bytes?
  • Are all starting locations of the Write operations you issue on 4K boundaries?
  • Do you utilize any operations that may bypass the Operating System or send commands directly to the hard disk drive?
  • Are you using any of the following: Network Download, Ghost Software, ImageX Software or similar program?
  • If using Ghost, are you using version 11.0 or later and using the "-align=1MB" feature for 4K alignment?
  • If using ImageX, do you have the latest build image from your MS TAM?
  • Are you using Win PE version 2.1 (Vista), Win PE 3.0 (Win 7)?
  • Are you using the latest Intel Storage Driver revision 9.6.0.1014 or later?
  • If you are an OEM, system integrator or have a designated Microsoft TAM, do you have the latest Microsoft OS builds or discussed 4K awareness with Microsoft?

Are you utilizing a high volume manufacturing Imaging Process to clone hard drives?

  • Are you using a Disk Duplicator for Cloning?
  • If yes, is your reference drive optimized for and the image aligned to 4K boundaries?
  • Is your duplicator software 4K aware, i.e. issues writes in 4K-block increments?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions, we recommend you engage in readiness testing to prepare for the upcoming transition to Advanced Format hard disk.

Advanced Format Atom

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