Question Which is better for an SSD? 512-byte or a 4096-byte sector?

[Super Spartan]

I see Sabrent has a tool format the SSD as 512-byte or a 4096-byte sector. Which is better?

 

[damian101]

On modern drives you want a cluster size of 4096 bytes or a multiple of that, aligned to a multiple of 4096 bytes. With smaller or unaligned clusters you get worse performance. That's because all modern drives have 4096 byte sectors, normally exposed as virtual 512 byte sectors for compatibility reasons.

 

[Super Spartan]

On modern drives you want a cluster size of 4096 bytes or a multiple of that, aligned to a multiple of 4096 bytes. With smaller or unaligned clusters you get worse performance. That's because all modern drives have 4096 byte sectors, normally exposed as virtual 512 byte sectors for compatibility reasons.

Thanks a lot damian

 

[Insert_Nickname]

That's because all modern drives have 4096 byte sectors, normally exposed as virtual 512 byte sectors for compatibility reasons.

To elaborate a bit further for the OP:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format

SSD have even larger sectors internally, but the drive itself takes care of that. If you wish to learn, more anandtech had a great article, by Anand himself no less:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/2738