Advanced Format
lastmod 2020-07-04created 2020-07-042 edits
Advanced Format (AF) is a term for disk sector formats used to store data on the magnetic disks of hard disk drives (HDDs) that exceed 512 to 528 bytes per sector, such as the 4096-byte (4 KiB) sectors of first-generation Advanced Format hard disk drives. Larger sectors allow the use of stronger error detection algorithms, maintaining data integrity at higher storage densities.
Advanced Format is also regarded as an important technology in the history of HDD storage, in which data has generally been handled in 512-byte segments at least since the introduction of consumer-grade HDDs, and in the professional field has been handled in similar or smaller portions since the invention of the HDD in 1956.
4K native
For hard disk drives working in the 4K native mode, there is no emulation layer in place, and the disk media directly exposes its 4096, 4112, 4160, or 4224-byte physical sector size to the system firmware and operating system. That way, the externally visible logical sectors organization of the 4K native drives is directly mapped to their internal physical sectors organization. Since April 2014, enterprise-class 4K native hard disk drives have been available on the market.
Readiness of the support for 4 KB logical sectors within operating systems differs among their types, vendors and versions. For example, Microsoft Windows supports 4K native drives since Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 (both released in 2012), and Linux supports 4K native drives since the Linux kernel version 2.6.31 and util-linux-ng version 2.17 (released in 2009 and 2010, respectively).
The color version of the logo indicating a 4K native drive is somewhat different from the 512e logo, featuring four rounded corners, a blue background, and text "4Kn" at the center of the logo.