Samsung 4k drives and there software for them

Jim wrote:
> I've just bought a couple of these F4 2TB drives (the 4k [AF] ones), now
> given I'm still running XP I had to use there "Acronics Align Tool" so I
> downloaded it, installed it and ran it and it done what it needed to do and
> came back saying drive was now fine.

> Now I took a drive image before I done this, so can I go back on old image
> (of course Acronics Align Tool will not be on it) and will the 2TB drive
> work fine, given Acronics Align Tool will no longer be on machine or do I
> have to have the software on the machine all the time.

The image will be fine but slow, as it will not be aligned
properly for 4k sectors.

> I will never be cloning from this drive nor will I be cloning to it either.

> Just don't want anything on machine I don't need to have that's all.

Then just uninstall the tool?

Arno
--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: arno DeleteThis @wagner.name
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them 

"Rod Speed" wrote in message

> Jim wrote:
>
>> I've just bought a couple of these F4 2TB drives (the 4k [AF] ones),
>> now given I'm still running XP I had to use there "Acronics Align
>> Tool" so I downloaded it, installed it and ran it and it done what it
>> needed to do and came back saying drive was now fine.
>
>>
>> Now I took a drive image before I done this, so can I go back on old
>> image (of course Acronics Align Tool will not be on it) and will the
>> 2TB drive work fine, given Acronics Align Tool will no longer be on
>> machine or do I have to have the software on the machine all the time.
>
> No you dont.
>
Rod I have just an email back from Samsung saying that I MUST have Acronics
Align Tool installed otherwise drive will be out of alignment, guess my move
to 7 will be sooner then I thought
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them 

Jim wrote:
> "Rod Speed" wrote in message
>
>> Jim wrote:
>>
>>> I've just bought a couple of these F4 2TB drives (the 4k [AF] ones),
>>> now given I'm still running XP I had to use there "Acronics Align
>>> Tool" so I downloaded it, installed it and ran it and it done what
>>> it needed to do and came back saying drive was now fine.
>>
>>>
>>> Now I took a drive image before I done this, so can I go back on old
>>> image (of course Acronics Align Tool will not be on it) and will the
>>> 2TB drive work fine, given Acronics Align Tool will no longer be on
>>> machine or do I have to have the software on the machine all the
>>> time.
>>
>> No you dont.

> Rod I have just an email back from Samsung saying that I MUST have Acronics Align Tool installed otherwise drive will
> be out of alignment,

Thats not what the web page says.

> guess my move to 7 will be sooner then I thought

Why change OS just so that doesnt have to be installed ?
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them 

On 01/06/2011 00:38, Jim wrote:
> "Rod Speed" wrote in message
>
>> Jim wrote:
>>
>>> I've just bought a couple of these F4 2TB drives (the 4k [AF] ones),
>>> now given I'm still running XP I had to use there "Acronics Align
>>> Tool" so I downloaded it, installed it and ran it and it done what it
>>> needed to do and came back saying drive was now fine.
>>
>>>
>>> Now I took a drive image before I done this, so can I go back on old
>>> image (of course Acronics Align Tool will not be on it) and will the
>>> 2TB drive work fine, given Acronics Align Tool will no longer be on
>>> machine or do I have to have the software on the machine all the time.
>>
>> No you dont.
>>
> Rod I have just an email back from Samsung saying that I MUST have Acronics
> Align Tool installed otherwise drive will be out of alignment, guess my move
> to 7 will be sooner then I thought
>

It should not be a problem to use 4K drives with XP, even without any
sort of add-on "alignment tool" software. First off, note that if you
get this wrong, so the alignment is off, your drive will still work fine
albeit a bit slower (for small writes - large writes will be mostly
unaffected, as will reads).

If you want to be sure your partitions are aligned with the 4K blocks
for better performance, there are several methods. One is to use a 4K
drive with a hardware jumper for offsetting the blocks so that logical
512 byte sector 63 is aligned - that's only really useful for the first
partition (which DOS and XP put at sector 63 by default) - it's not much
use if you have more than one partition unless you make sure that /all/
partitions start at sector numbers 8n+7.

But the easiest way is to use a partitioning tool other than the XP
installer - put your partition(s) in the right place, then do your
install/copy/restore or whatever. There are lots of good, free
partitioning tools available - probably even fdisk in windows will let
you make aligned partitions if you are happy calculating the numbers
yourself.

I don't know anything about the "Acronics Align Tool", but if it is
anything like WD's Align Utility, then it works by moving all your
partitions so that they are aligned. It's a slow process, but only
needs to be done once. WD's tool is not something you "install", it is
only run a single time.


There /may/ be good reasons for installing Win 7 (I can't think of any
myself - if I have to use Windows, I prefer XP). But the automatic
response from an ignorant Samsung service droid hardly counts.
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them 

30 May 2011 07:10:28 GMT, Arno wrote:

> The image will be fine but slow, as it will not be aligned
> properly for 4k sectors.

Is "Advanced Format 4K sectors" a factor in choosing
a recent HDD partitioning software product?

What do *you* use (bootable CD) for a recent
HDD partitioning software product?

Bill
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them 

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 09:42:55 +0200, David Brown wrote:

> If you want to be sure your partitions are aligned with the 4K blocks
> for better performance, there are several methods. One is to use a 4K
> drive with a hardware jumper for offsetting the blocks so that logical
> 512 byte sector 63 is aligned - that's only really useful for the first
> partition (which DOS and XP put at sector 63 by default) - it's not much
> use if you have more than one partition unless you make sure that /all/
> partitions start at sector numbers 8n+7.
>
> But the easiest way is to use a partitioning tool other than the XP
> installer - put your partition(s) in the right place, then do your
> install/copy/restore or whatever. There are lots of good, free
> partitioning tools available - probably even fdisk in windows will let
> you make aligned partitions if you are happy calculating the numbers
> yourself.
>
> I don't know anything about the "Acronics Align Tool", but if it is
> anything like WD's Align Utility, then it works by moving all your
> partitions so that they are aligned. It's a slow process, but only
> needs to be done once. WD's tool is not something you "install", it is
> only run a single time.

What do *you* use (bootable CD) for a recent
HDD partitioning software product?

> There /may/ be good reasons for installing Win 7 (I can't think of any
> myself - if I have to use Windows, I prefer XP).

Sort of agreed. But I've recently set up my
1st PC with Win 7/64 Pro and it impresses me
as an improvement over XP.

> But the automatic
> response from an ignorant Samsung service droid hardly counts.

I've got my 1st "Advanced Format 4K sectors" 2GB drive
showing up tomorrow.

Looked at WD and Samsung, but went with Seagate green.
5900 RPM and SATA 6Gb/s with 64MB buffer and
"Seagate SmartAlign Technology" seemed like
icing on the cake.

Bill
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them 

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:44:07 +0200, David Brown wrote:

> On 01/06/2011 16:23, willbill wrote:

> > What do *you* use (bootable CD) for a recent
> > HDD partitioning software product?

> I use System Rescue CD (a Linux bootable CD or USB image). I didn't
> mention any, because if the OP is familiar with Linux then he would
> probably already know that such Linux live CDs exist (or he would at
> least know that any Linux installer will partition a disk), and if he
> wanted a Windows program then others in this newsgroup are better
> qualified to give suggestions.

I made no mention of Windows in that sentence.

I have zero plans of actually loading it to my
Win7/64 machine! Nor to my Win XP PC's!

I just want a *bootable* disk that will do aligned
partitions (for the new HDD that have 4k sectors),
and as much else that might be useful for this
type of thing.

BTW, I haven't done all my homework yet,
but this is what I've dug up so far:

I see Avanquest Partition Commander 10
on Newegg as maybe my "expensive"
choice at $45, but don't know how old it is
(ignore %20 in the ref as that is in fact a space
in the web page that get's pulled up):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832334062&Tpk=Av...uest%20

Also wikipedia has this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_partitioning_software

.... which lead me to MiniTool's Partition Wizard at
several price points, including a free version
and a low(er) cost paid version of $29. See price
info at:
http://partitionwizard.com/buy.html

Any help/ideas on what to choose will
be greatly appreciated.

Bill
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them 

willbill wrote:
> 30 May 2011 07:10:28 GMT, Arno wrote:

>> The image will be fine but slow, as it will not be aligned
>> properly for 4k sectors.

> Is "Advanced Format 4K sectors" a factor in choosing
> a recent HDD partitioning software product?

Indeed, it is.

> What do *you* use (bootable CD) for a recent
> HDD partitioning software product?

gparted via Knoppix. I think it does 4k alignment
automatically now, but I do not have any
internal 4k disks at this time. Externals, I use
unpartitioned and the issue does not arise.

Arno
--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: arno.TakeThisOut@wagner.name
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them 

Jim wrote
> Rod Speed wrote
>> Jim wrote

>>> I've just bought a couple of these F4 2TB drives (the 4k [AF] ones),
>>> now given I'm still running XP I had to use there "Acronics Align
>>> Tool" so I downloaded it, installed it and ran it and it done what
>>> it needed to do and came back saying drive was now fine.

>>> Now I took a drive image before I done this, so can I go back on old
>>> image (of course Acronics Align Tool will not be on it) and will the
>>> 2TB drive work fine, given Acronics Align Tool will no longer be on
>>> machine or do I have to have the software on the machine all the time.

>> No you dont.

> Rod I have just an email back from Samsung saying that I MUST have
> Acronics Align Tool installed otherwise drive will be out of alignment,

That conflicts with
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5341/~/how-to-use-the-...onis-al

which clearly isnt installed at all since its run from a booted CD, so the
Samsung droid must have had a brain fart or misunderstood your question.

> guess my move to 7 will be sooner then I thought
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them 

1 Jun 2011 21:52:32 GMT, Arno wrote:

> willbill wrote:

> > 30 May 2011 07:10:28 GMT, Arno wrote:
>
> >> The image will be fine but slow, as it will not be aligned
> >> properly for 4k sectors.
>
> > Is "Advanced Format 4K sectors" a factor in choosing
> > a recent HDD partitioning software product?
>
> Indeed, it is.
>
> > What do *you* use (bootable CD) for a recent
> > HDD partitioning software product?
>
> gparted via Knoppix. I think it does 4k alignment
> automatically now, but I do not have any
> internal 4k disks at this time. Externals, I use
> unpartitioned and the issue does not arise.

Does gparted format NTFS and FAT32 partitions?

Bill
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them 

willbill wrote:
> 1 Jun 2011 21:52:32 GMT, Arno wrote:

>> willbill wrote:

>> > 30 May 2011 07:10:28 GMT, Arno wrote:
>>
>> >> The image will be fine but slow, as it will not be aligned
>> >> properly for 4k sectors.
>>
>> > Is "Advanced Format 4K sectors" a factor in choosing
>> > a recent HDD partitioning software product?
>>
>> Indeed, it is.
>>
>> > What do *you* use (bootable CD) for a recent
>> > HDD partitioning software product?
>>
>> gparted via Knoppix. I think it does 4k alignment
>> automatically now, but I do not have any
>> internal 4k disks at this time. Externals, I use
>> unpartitioned and the issue does not arise.

> Does gparted format NTFS and FAT32 partitions?

What does the filesystem have to do with the partitioning?
That is a different thing. Nonetheless, gparted also allows
you to create a FAT32 filesystem on an existing partition.
For NTFS, you have to fall back to Windows, but windows
can create NTFS on exiting partitions.

Arno
--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: arno.RemoveThis@wagner.name
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them 

On 01/06/11 20:34, willbill wrote:
> Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:44:07 +0200, David Brown wrote:
>
>> On 01/06/2011 16:23, willbill wrote:
>
>>> What do *you* use (bootable CD) for a recent
>>> HDD partitioning software product?
>
>> I use System Rescue CD (a Linux bootable CD or USB image). I didn't
>> mention any, because if the OP is familiar with Linux then he would
>> probably already know that such Linux live CDs exist (or he would at
>> least know that any Linux installer will partition a disk), and if he
>> wanted a Windows program then others in this newsgroup are better
>> qualified to give suggestions.
>
> I made no mention of Windows in that sentence.
>
> I have zero plans of actually loading it to my
> Win7/64 machine! Nor to my Win XP PC's!
>
> I just want a *bootable* disk that will do aligned
> partitions (for the new HDD that have 4k sectors),
> and as much else that might be useful for this
> type of thing.
>
> BTW, I haven't done all my homework yet,
> but this is what I've dug up so far:
>
> I see Avanquest Partition Commander 10
> on Newegg as maybe my "expensive"
> choice at $45, but don't know how old it is
> (ignore %20 in the ref as that is in fact a space
> in the web page that get's pulled up):
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832334062&Tpk=Av...uest%20
>
> Also wikipedia has this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_partitioning_software
>
> ... which lead me to MiniTool's Partition Wizard at
> several price points, including a free version
> and a low(er) cost paid version of $29. See price
> info at:
> http://partitionwizard.com/buy.html
>
> Any help/ideas on what to choose will
> be greatly appreciated.
>

I gave you a suggestion - System Rescue CD. Here is the link:
<http://www.sysresccd.org/>

Why anyone would /pay/ for partitioning tools is beyond my comprehension.
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them 

On 02/06/11 16:45, Arno wrote:
> willbill wrote:
>> 1 Jun 2011 21:52:32 GMT, Arno wrote:
>
>>> willbill wrote:
>
>>>> 30 May 2011 07:10:28 GMT, Arno wrote:
>>>
>>>>> The image will be fine but slow, as it will not be aligned
>>>>> properly for 4k sectors.
>>>
>>>> Is "Advanced Format 4K sectors" a factor in choosing
>>>> a recent HDD partitioning software product?
>>>
>>> Indeed, it is.
>>>
>>>> What do *you* use (bootable CD) for a recent
>>>> HDD partitioning software product?
>>>
>>> gparted via Knoppix. I think it does 4k alignment
>>> automatically now, but I do not have any
>>> internal 4k disks at this time. Externals, I use
>>> unpartitioned and the issue does not arise.
>
>> Does gparted format NTFS and FAT32 partitions?
>
> What does the filesystem have to do with the partitioning?
> That is a different thing. Nonetheless, gparted also allows
> you to create a FAT32 filesystem on an existing partition.
> For NTFS, you have to fall back to Windows, but windows
> can create NTFS on exiting partitions.
>

gparted is a partitioner, which as you say has nothing to do with
filesystems - filesystems go on top of the partitions. But it
conveniently offers a menu to run the various mkfs programs to create
filesystems - and that includes NTFS if you have a bootable CD with NTFS
support (Knoppix does, as does System Rescue CD).

So you use gparted to make the partitions you want, aligned as you want.
You then have the choice of formatting them while still running from
the Live CD, including NTFS and FAT32 - and including large partition
FAT32 systems that Windows will happily use, but will not format. Or
you can leave the disk partitioned but unformatted, and let Windows (or
its installer) format them later.
 >> Stay informed about: Samsung 4k drives and there software for them