Question about WD Advanced Format drive

[nerp]

So I have a WD Green 800GB drive with the 4k instead of 512 byte sector size. By mistake, I used it to build a new WHS box and installed the OS without using the jumper or the WD Align utility beforehand. Let's just say the performance was anemic to the point the machine was unusable.

I ended up using a different drive to install the WHS and I now have the WD Green drive sittig on my desk. I plan on adding it to my storage pool but am unsure how to proceed. Should I just jumper it and throw it in, or should i forget the jumper and use the align utility before throwing it in? The literature on the utility suggests to me that I should run the align tool and skip the jumper for "maximum performance" whatever that means. The drive will only have one partition.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[faxon]

what OS are you using? if you just use win7 you wont have to do anything

 

[nerp]

It's WHS, based on server 2003, so I need to figure something out.

 

[sub.mesa]

Boot with Windows Vista or Windows 7
Create partition
Reboot and install Windows Server 2003 to the partition you created.

In other words, as long as Windows XP / Win2003 does NOT create that partition, it won't be misaligned. Vista and Windows 7 create partitions the right way.

You can also do this with PartedMagic, based on GParted.

Do NOT use the jumper on the drive! Its a dirty hack.

 

[nerp]

It's as simple as creating the partition in Win 7? If I understand correctly, adding the drive to the storage pool might cause the partition I created in Windows 7 to be recreated by the WHS server. This suggests I should run the align util, right? Or am I overthinking this?

 

[RebateMonger]

I suggest you join the http://wegotserved.com forum and do some reading. WDC's Advanced Format disks have been the subject of several threads there:

http://www.wegotserved.com/2010/01/...vanced-format-drives-and-windows-home-server/

I don't own any Advanced Format disks, but a quick read at the end of this thread,
http://forum.wegotserved.com/index....-drives-should-we-use-wd-align/page__st__140?, indicates that you may be as well off using the jumper. As you already found, using an Advanced Format disk for the WHS SYSTEM disk is not recommended.

"I added two 1.5 TB EARS drives to my homebuilt WHS using the jumper and all worked great. Through put is just as good as the 1 TB EADS drives I've got installed. Some may consider the jumper a "hack", but for storage pool drives it works and is much easier than mucking about with the WD align app. "

"Agent86oz, I am using two WD 2TB EARS drives (with jumpers) together with 4 WD 2TB EADS drives, and I have no performance/networking issues whatsoever (and I'm using my WHS to store DVDs, so there is a lot of disk throughput whenever I copy new rips to the server)."

 

[mv2devnull]

I think the jumper simply activates a trivial redirection:
LBA := LBA+1

Do not confuse "partition" with "filesystem". Former is about rough addressing and latter about content. It is easy to create aligned partition, add it to that WHS pool, and then check again whether the partition table has been touched.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would avoid WD Advanced Format HDs for WHS, personally. Samsung and Hitachi make some nice 2TB HDs that use standard 512byte sectors.

 

[sub.mesa]

I think the jumper simply activates a trivial redirection:
LBA := LBA+1

Not exactly, but almost:

The jumper, when enabled, will increase the sectors per track from the default 63 to 64. This would also mean the second track starts at offset 64 instead of 63. 64 * 512 bytes = 32KiB which is perfectly aligned with 4KiB.

The problem is that this is an ugly hack, and it may not work properly on all systems. Changing the jumper back might also lead to unpredictable results depending on operating system.

I would create a proper partition, then install XP/Win2003 to it. That would make sure it is aligned. To check, download AS SSD and see if it says "... KB - OK" at the top of the screen.

 

[nerp]

I have to use the jumper.

After reading the We Got Served forums extensively, that's the answer. No matter waht you do with the drive, whether its aligning it or partitioning it in another machine, you're back to square one as soon as you put it in the WHS storage pool and it wipes it and creates its own partitions.

The only way to not use the jumper is to install WHS on just the WD advanced drive, align it in another machine, put it back in and use it as the WHS OS drive. You can't run align on drives already added to the storage pool.