4Kn == end of Windows 7, before 2020 EOL date?

[VirtualLarry]

According to MS's own documentation, Windows 7 is not compatible with 4Kn-sector HDDs. Since HDD makers have started to introduce those drives, if they take over the market like AF 512e drives have (which aren't compatible with XP), what will Win7 users do?

Will MS release a Win7 SP2, with well-needed patches, or let Win7 wither in the marketplace, with users unable to use their computers due to HDD unavailability?


http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848035(v=vs.85).aspx

 

[bunnyfubbles]

1. there are plenty of HDDs available now that work fine on XP, don't know why the same wouldn't be true for 7's EOL
2. HDDs are likely to be largely supplanted by SSD for the average user in that time frame, with HDDs relegated to mass storage duty for media files, NAS/SAN etc
3. improvements in internet infrastructure could pave the way for cloud storage to truly take off (gigabit internet bandwidth can already saturate single HDD sustained transfer rates)

 

[VirtualLarry]

1. there are plenty of HDDs available now that work fine on XP

Yeah, like one model - the Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" HDD. All Black HDDs are AF 512e. The few Black 1TB drives of the older non-AF model were selling for 3x list price, until they sold out, at Newegg.

3. improvements in internet infrastructure could pave the way for cloud storage to truly take off (gigabit internet bandwidth can already saturate single HDD sustained transfer rates)

Can't boot off of the cloud.

 

[ViRGE]

As far as I know, no one is currently shipping 4K Native HDDs in the consumer space. Nor have I heard plans to do so. There doesn't seem to be much of a rush so I don't think there's anything to be concerned about.

As for what MS will do, they'll tell people to use Windows 8. Windows 7 goes into Extended Support later this year, at which point no new features will be added.

 

[Cerb]

4Kn drives will have a small market for years to come. For systems capable, alignment handles performance and stress problems for easily >99% of cases, and 48-bit LBA allows for 128PB drives, with 512B sectors, I believe. With 512e drives working perfectly well, and not being a practical limitation, now or in the foreseeable future, I don't see why any HDD maker would even bother, at least not for quite some time.

I could see 4Kn SSDs in the not too distant future, though.

Yeah, like one model

More like all of them at or under 2TB, that are sold as internal HDDs. If people were willing to pay more for the privilege of saving <1 minute one time per HDD, they're free to, but that's all they were getting for it. Replacing HDDs for XP systems has not been a chore. Just initialize and format it in a newer OS, then install XP to it. It'll be aligned to 1MB, waste <2MB total space, and everything will work fine.

 

[Raduque]

Can't boot off of the cloud.

Using the PXE bootloader to boot from LAN, combined with a router solution that can re-route local calls to the internet over a secure VPN to a server with a boot image, I don't see why not?

Feel free to say I don't know what I'm talking about though.

 

[escrow4]

7 already feels ancient to me seeing as I've been using 8[.1] for so long. Come next January its security support only, so not only this but any platform updates won't make it across - I wouldn't be surprised if DX 12 is 8 only. Hilariously ironic for those "upgrading" to 7 instead of 8.1+. Its nearly used up half of its support period . . . . .

 

[Cerb]

^ Meanwhile, back in reality: http://arstechnica.com/information-...ish-governments-pay-to-keep-windows-xp-alive/

Hardware and software live for a very long time. IMO, MS extending XP the first time was a bad move, but nonetheless, they were a driving factor in helping to make software OS- and service-version-dependent, and everyone else ends up stuck because of it.

 

[piasabird]

Looks like they just use 512e or 512 sector emulation to read the 4k sectors which require extra rotations of the drive, which kind of defeats the purpose to use a 4k sector drive. Operating system will catch up soon. Other problems with hard drives have occurred in the past. Sometimes they just put the firmware on the drive to read it as a kind of workaround. If it does not work, don't buy it.

I like how you mention Hard Drive 4kn technology like you just expect everyone to know what it is. Typical of Techno nerds. Should have offered a link.

 

[Cerb]

Looks like they just use 512e or 512 sector emulation to read the 4k sectors which require extra rotations of the drive, which kind of defeats the purpose to use a 4k sector drive.

File systems have used 4K and larger (usually powers of 2) block sizes as standard since over 20 years ago. If the filesystem's first sector is aligned to the first 512B of some 4K physical sector, it works fine. Only in very rare cases will RMW cycles end up being needed, with a partition aligned to 4K or greater.

XP will not do that by default, but it runs fine on partitions that are made aligned, and said alignment can be done manually inside of XP, and I'm pretty sure XP's recovery console, as well, with diskpart. Else, get GParted live, if there aren't Vista or newer Windows boxes to use.

I like how you mention Hard Drive 4kn technology like you just expect everyone to know what it is. Typical of Techno nerds. Should have offered a link.

He did.

 

[owensdj]

As far as I know, no one is currently shipping 4K Native HDDs in the consumer space. Nor have I heard plans to do so...

I have a 4K Native hard drive right now. It's an external drive. Did you mean internal?

 

[ViRGE]

I have a 4K Native hard drive right now. It's an external drive. Did you mean internal?

Yes.