Plugable USB-C SATA 変換ケーブル
$23.95 USD
SKU: USBC-SATA24Amazon Rating : (153 Reviews)
機能
- Portable—Connect 2.5 inch SATA hard drives and SSDs to your USB-C compatible computer, no additional adapters or power supplies necessary
- Featured Packed—Supports USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP), Bulk-Only Transport (BOT), 512e and 4K sector sizes, and LBA48 addressing
- Fast—Supports USB-C ports that support up to 10Gbps, with transfer rates up to 6Gbps via SATA III
- Important Notes—Compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux. Data transfer rates may be limited by USB host controller, drive speed, file system, or method of file transfer.
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Plugable ポータブル USB-C 2.5 インチ ハードディスク・アダプター
このアダプターは、2.5 インチのほとんどの SATA I、SATA II、SATA III ハードディスク、SSD、またはハイブリッドドライブに対応しています。 UASP プロトコルおよび BOT(バルク・オンリー転送)にも対応している ASMedia 社製 ASM1351 チップセットを採用し USB 3.1 Gen 2 規格の性能を提供できるうえに、非常に軽量でコンパクトなのが特徴です。この ASM1351 チップセットは、これまで多く使われてきた USB-SATA ブリッジ IC に比べ、電力消費量と転送速度の両方を最適化する高度な機能を持っています。
2.5 インチ SATA ハードドライブおよび 2.5 インチ SATA SSD で使用可能
このアダプターは様々な用途で利用することができ、従来のハードディスク接続より多くの利点を持ちます。例えば故障した PC からリカバリー用データを外部に保存したり、ハードディスクを複製したり、周期的なバックアップを外部ディスクに保存する、などです。
標準 2.5 インチ SATA インターフェースの従来のハードディスクや、SSD ドライブを接続できます。両者のハイブリッドタイプのディスクでも使用できます。
48 ビット LBA により 2TB 以上の大容量ドライブにも対応できます。理論上、もしホストコンピュータの OS がサポートするのであれば、このケーブルは最大 128 PiB(ペピバイト) まで対応可能です。
最大 750Mbps 転送速度で、SATA III SSD からデータ転送
パフォーマンス
この SATA III 対応アダプターは、SATA III 規格の最大である 6Gbps(750Mbps)帯域幅に対応しています。 PC の USB-C ポートが USB 3.2(10Gbps)対応であれば、SATA III ディスクの転送速度を最大限に利用できます。もし USB 3.1 対応(5Gbps)の場合は、その帯域幅よって 5Gbps 転送速度までに制限されます。 理論上、USB 2.0(480Mbps、60MB/秒)による転送に比べて、最大約 12 倍速くデータ転送ができることになります。
互換性
このアダプターの最大転送速度を得るために、PC の USB 3.2 (10Gbps)対応か、または Thunderbolt 3 対応の USB-C ポートに接続して使うことをお勧めします。 USB 3.1(5Gbps)ポートにも接続できますが、転送速度が遅くなります。 実際の転送速度は PC の USB ホストコントローラなど様々な要因により影響を受ける点にご留意ください。
最新技術に対応
このアダプターは最新技術である LBA48 アドレスモード対応で、512e および 4K セクターのアドバンス・フォーマット・ディスク、そして MBR と GPT のどちらのパーティションテーブルにも対応しています。
また、より高速なデータ転送のために近年の PC システムの多くが対応している BOT(バルク・オンリー転送)と UASP(USB Attached SCSI プロトコル) にも対応しています。
互換性
- USB Type-C 10Gbps
- SATA III 6Gbps
- 2TB 以上の 2.5 インチドライブおよび SSD
- Windows、MacOS、Linux
- UASP と BOT プロトコル
- 512e と 4K バイト/セクター 両方のドライブ
バスパワーと SATA 転送を統合したアダプターのため、ディスクを接続する際に他のケーブルなどを使う必要はありません。USB-C コネクターの採用により、最近の USB-C 搭載システムで簡単に使用できます。
オレンジ色の LED ライトにより、ドライブの活動状況を知らせます。(点灯中は電源接続、点滅はディスク作業中を示します。)
パッケージには、当 USBC-SATA24 アダプターが入っています。
- SATA III(6Gbps)、SATA II(3Gbps)および SATA(1.5Gbps)の 2.5 インチ SSD およびハードディスクと互換性があります。
- 2.5 インチで 5V 対応のハードディスク および SSD を接続できます。12V 電源が必要なディスクや、3.5 インチの SATA ハードディスクでは使用できません。
- 5Gbps または 10Gbps 対応の USB-C ポートで使用できます。
- このアダプター用の特別なデバイス・ドライバは必要ありません。Windows 11、10、8.x、macOS 、Linux/Unix に内蔵されている、USB マス・ストレージクラスによりサポートされます。
- Windows システムでこのケーブルを使う場合、安定したパフォーマンスのために USB 3.1/3.0 xHCI ホストコントローラ・デバイス・ドライバを最新に更新してください。
- UASP 機能を使うためには、PC および OS がこの UASP プロトコルに対応している必要があります。
- 64 ビット OS では、2TB 以上の大容量ディスクに対応します。32 ビット Windows では 最大 2 TB までという制限があります。
- 初めて使用するディスクは予め初期化されパーティショニングされ、フォーマットされていなければなりません。 Mac や Windows システムは、 Linux/Unix によってフォーマットされたディスクは読み込めませんので注意してください。
パッケージ内容
内容物と数量 | 注記 |
---|---|
1x Plugable USB-C SATA 変換ケーブル |
同梱ケーブル
ポートタイプ(側面 1 ) | ケーブル仕様 | ポートタイプ(側面 2 ) | ケーブル長 | ケーブル用外部電源 |
---|---|---|---|---|
USB-C(オス) | USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) | SATA III | 0.24m/0.79ft | いいえ |
電源
ポート | 場所 | 電源 ホスト/デバイス | 接続タイプ | 備考 | 電圧 | アンペア | ワット数 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
USB Type-C | 背面 | 周辺機器 | USB-C | USB バスパワー(電源アダプタ不要) | 0.0W |
ホストへの接続
ポート | 場所 | バージョンとリンクレート | 機能 |
---|---|---|---|
1x USB-C | 前面 | USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) |
ストレージ
ストレージポートの位置 | ホスト接続 | ホスト接続ポート仕様 | 付属ケーブル(またはポートタイプ) | スロットとメディアタイプ | 容量(メディアが含まれている場合)または最大サポート容量 | チップセット |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
外部 | USB-C | USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) | あり | SATA SSD または
SATA HDD または
SATA SSHD SATA III |
ASM1351 ASmedia |
物理仕様
項目 | サイズ(高さ×幅×奥行き)または長さ | 重量 | 製品番号 |
---|---|---|---|
UCB-C to SATA adapter cable | 1 x 4 x 3 centimeters 0.4 x 1.6 x 1.2 inches |
20 g |
USBC-SATA24 |
USBC-SATA24 は下記のドライブで使用できます。
- 2.5 インチ SATA HDD および SSD
- 5400RPM および 7200RPM の 5V HDD
- SATA I、SATA II、SATA IIIの各ドライブ(それぞれ最大データ転送速度 150MBps、300MBps、600MBps まで)
- 512e および 4K バイト/セクタの 8TB 以上のドライブ
The USBC-SATA24 is incompatible with the following drive types:
- SATA 3.5-inch desktop hard drives, these drives are better suited with our USBC-SATA-V Vertical Hard Drive Dock
- SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) drives, these have a similar, although incompatible, connector to the SATA connector in this dock
- IDE/ATA drives, these use a pin array that is incompatible with the SATA data and power connector in this dock
- SCSI drives, these use a variety of different connectors and require a computer with built-in SCSI controller, or discrete SCSI controller (ISA, PCI, or PCIe)
- M.2 SATA, PCIe AHCI, or NVMe, these drives use an M.2 edge connector and are not compatible with the SATA connector in this dock
- PCMCIA, Compact Flash, SD/MicroSD Card, these are not compatible with the SATA connector in this dock
- Windows 10 および Windows 8.1 - UAS(USB Attached SCSI)または BOT(Bulk Only Transport)を使用
- Windows 7、Windows Vista、Windows XP - BOT(Bulk Only Transport)を使用
- Windows XPでは、より大きなドライブを使用していても、2TB のみのサイズに制限されることがあります。
- macOS 10.8 Mountain Lion 以降 - UAS(USB Attached SCSI)または BOT(Bulk Only Transport)を使用
- macOS 10.7 Lion - BOT(バルク・オンリー・トランスポート)を利用
- macOS 10.4 以降では、実用的な SSD ドライブのサイズ制限はありませんが、採用したファイルシステムによりサイズ制限があることがあります。
- Linux Kernel 3.15 以降 - UAS(USB Attached SCSI)または BOT (Bulk Only Transport)を使用
- Linux カーネル 2.6.31 以降 - 2TB を超えるドライブのセクターごとに 4K をサポート
使用手順
- USBC-SATA24 ケーブルを、2.5インチ SATA ラップトップ用HDD、または SSD に接続
- USB-C ケーブルの端をコンピュータの USB-C ポートに接続
- オペレーティングシステムがドライブを検出
トラブルシューティング
Q: What if my hard drive is not detected automatically?
A: New hard drives and solid state drives must be partitioned and formatted before use, please watch our drive formatting videos for Windows and macOS
Q: What hard drives are supported?
A: SATA I, II, and SATA III 2.5-inch (5 volt) hard drives and solid states drives are compatible with this adapter.
Q: Why are my transfer speeds less than I expect?
A: Transfer speed is limited by the technology of your computer and hard drives. For example, a computer with USB-C may be capable of up to 10Gbps bandwidth, however SATA III has a maximum bandwidth of 6Gbps. Most spinning disk hard drives are significantly slower than the rated SATA verion while SSDs can support speeds close to their SATA version.
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Checking Drive SMART Values in Windows 10
Modern hard drives and solid state drives include support for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology or SMART. SMART data can show signs of drive failure or wear before data loss occurs and can be used to monitor the health of the drive including the temperature sensors in the drive itself.
From the Crystal Disk Info Graphical Utility
Crystal Disk Info can be downloaded from here, this is a 3rd party utility for viewing a drive’s SMART data in windows. This can be run without installation by downloading and extracting the ZIP file, or installed like many other applications.
Crystal Disk Info version 8.12.6 and above includes built-in support for these Plugable Products:
After extracting the zip file, right-click on “DiskInfo64.exe” and select “Run as Administrator” to start the application with Administrative permissions required to read the SMART data from the drive.
From the Command Line with smartctl
The smartctl command is provided in the smartmontools suite. This can be downloaded and installed for Windows or Linux. The current stable version 7.2 released December 30 2020. The latest daily build can be downloaded from here, these are built from the latest source code and include support for newer chipsets not available in the 7.2 release.
Smartmontools version 7.2 and above includes built-in support for these Plugable Products:
Installation and Running
- After downloading the smartmontools-7.2-1.win32-setup.exe, right-click on the file and select “Run as Administrator” to start the installation. Follow the on screen steps to install smartmontools.
- Open a terminal, right-click on the start menu and select “Windows PowerShell (Admin)” from the pop-up menu
- Type in `smartctl --scan` to list the available drives
- To output all of the drive’s SMART data, type in `smartctl --all /dev/sdn` where /dev/sdn is the first column from the scan output for the drive to be read
- Optionally, output this to a file the desktop using the following: `smartctl --all /dev/sdn > $env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\smartdata.txt
If you receive an error “Open failed, Error=5” most likely the Windows PowerShell was not run as Administrator.
Checking Drive SMART Values in Linux
Modern hard drives and solid state drives include support for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology or SMART. SMART data can show signs of drive failure or wear before data loss occurs and can be used to monitor the health of the drive including the temperature sensors in the drive itself.
From the terminal with smartctl
The smartctl command is provided in the smartmontools suite. This can be downloaded and installed for Windows or Linux. The current stable version 7.2 released December 30 2020, Fedora 34 provides the latest version through DNF, however both Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and CentOS 8 provide an older version that does not support all of our storage products. The latest daily build can be downloaded from here, these are built from the latest source code and include support for newer chipsets not available in the 7.2 release.
Smartmontools version 7.2 and above includes built-in support for these Plugable Products:
Downloading and running
- Download smartmontools from your repository using the following commands:
- For Ubuntu 20.04 LTS or Pop!OS: `sudo apt install smartmontools`
- For Fedora or CentOS: `sudo dnf install smartmontools`
- To scan for detected drives run the following command: `smartctl --scan`
- To print all SMART data for a specific drive use the command: `sudo smartctl --all /dev/sdn` where /dev/sdn is the path to the block device.
- Optionally, this output can be saved to a file using the following: `sudo smartctl --all /dev/sdn > ~/smartdata.txt` for detailed examination
Downloading and running the nightly build
If your distribution has not updated to smartmontools 7.2, then running the nightly build is the easiest way to read SMART values on our USBC-NVME enclsoure, smartmontools 7.1 supports both our USB-C SATA adapter and vertical drive dock.
- Download smartmontools latest build for your system from the nightly builds webpage here https://builds.smartmontools.org/
- For modern x86_64 computers I recommend: 'builds/smartmontools-linux-x86_64-static-7.3-r####.tar.gz' where #### depends on the build number.
- Extract the contents of the tarball using the following command: `tar -xf smartmontools-linux-x86_64-static-7.3-*.tar.gz`
- This creates a file structure in the same directory as the smartmontools tarball file.
- Navigate into the file structure with the following command: `cd ./usr/local/sbin`
- To scan for detected drives run the following command: `./smartctl --scan`
- Please note, the './' preceding 'smartctl' tells the shell to run the command from this directory, rather than searching the PATH for the 'smartctl' command
- To print all SMART data for a specific drive use the command: `sudo ./smartctl --all /dev/sdn` where /dev/sdn is the path to the block device.
- Optionally, this output can be saved to a file using the following: `sudo ./smartctl --all /dev/sdn > ~/smartdata.txt` for detailed examination
Trim an SSD in Windows 10
Windows 10 enables Trim for both internal and USB connected SSDs with supported host controllers, devices, and file systems. Windows 10 supports Trim on USB storage devices that support UASP (USB Attached SCSI Protocol) and with either NTFS or ReFS file systems. Some early USB 3 host controllers may not support UASP or Trim correctly.
To check if Trim is enabled in Windows 10 please try the following:
- Launch Windows PowerShell with Administrative Permissions ( Right-click on the Start Menu and select "Windows PowerShell (Admin)"
- Allow the application to run as administrator through Windows User Account Control
- Type in the following command to check the value for DisableDeleteNotify
fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify
- If DisableDeleteNotify is set to 1, we can enable Trim with the following command
fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0
To manually run Trim or to modify the automatic schedule:
- Open the Windows 10 Start Menu and type "optimize" into the search box
- Select "Defragment and Optimize Drives" app from the search results
- The Optimize Drives window shows connected drives that can be optimized
- Select the USB connected SSD from the list and then press the "Optimize" button to manually start trim
- Use the "Change settings" button to adjust or schedule Trim on the drive
Alternatively Trim can be run manually from the command line:
- Launch Windows PowerShell with Administrative Permissions ( Right-click on the Start Menu and select "Windows PowerShell (Admin)"
- Allow the application to run as administrator through Windows User Account Control
- Type in the following command, where X: is the drive letter of the external device to run Trim at the command prompt
defrag /o X:
Trim an SSD in macOS
Apple macOS enables Trim for internal Apple SSDs only. Advanced users can also enable Trim for USB connected SSDs with Apple APFS formatted partitions. Apple macOS runs Trim when the file system is detected by the operating system, this is either on device connection or system restart, Apple does not provide a manual Trim tool like with Windows or Linux.
Enabling Trim in macOS
Open a terminal (Finder > Go > Utilities > Terminal) and enter the following command:
sudo trimforce --enable
This requires administrative permissions to run and you will need to enter your password to continue.
A long warning will be presented, please read this fully.
Enter ‘Y’ to continue, or ‘N’ to cancel
Trim can be disabled with the following command:
sudo trimforce --disable
Verifying Trim on macOS
Apple macOS does not have a function to manually run a Trim command, instead it is run when a supported drive and supported file system is detected by the operating system. We can check to verify Trim is running on a drive by performing the following:
Open a terminal (Finder > Go > Utilities > Terminal) and enter the following command:
log show --start $(date +%F) | grep -i spaceman_trim_free_blocks
This may take a moment to complete, I recommend expanding the window to full screen for easier reading.
Each output line represents a file system that has been trimmed on today’s date, here is an example line:
2021-08-13 07:16:07.556498-0700 0x2b2d Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (apfs) spaceman_trim_free_blocks:3371: disk3 scan took 0.000614 s, trims took 0.000000 s
The specific drive is “disk3” in my example, we verify that disk3 matches the external drive by comparing to the output of this command:
diskutil list
/dev/disk3 (synthesized): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: APFS Container Scheme - +160.0 GB disk3 Physical Store disk2s2 1: APFS Volume Intel160 774.1 KB disk3s1
TRIM an SSD in Linux
Trim Support in Linux
Modern Linux distributions support the TRIM and DEALLOCATE commands for SATA SSDs and NVMe SSDs respectively, for simplicity we will refer to these two commands as Trim in this article.
These commands are filesystem dependent and supported on the following file systems:
File System | Trim Support |
---|---|
Btrfs | Yes |
Ext4 | Yes |
XFS | Yes |
JFX | Yes |
EXT3 | No |
NTFS-3G | Yes (Periodic Only) |
VFAT | Yes |
When a file is no longer needed by the file system, the TRIM command can be sent to the SSD to help the built-in garbage collection utility determine which memory locations need to be maintained and which can be ignored. Maintaining unnecessary memory locations takes time and can slow down read and write access to the drive.
Most current Linux distributions use fstrim.service and fstrim.timer to coordinate periodic SSD maintenance with TRIM. However USB connected SSDs do not automatically have TRIM enabled, instead requiring some manual configuration. The TRIM command can be issued manually using the fstrim command, for example the following code will run Trim on compatible file system mounted to /media/user/USBSTORAGE. Please note, all code examples in this document require root permissions unless otherwise noted.
fstrim -v /media/user/USBSTORAGE
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS automatically mounts USB storage to /media/{username}/{storage volume name} while Fedora 34 automatically mounts USB storage to /run/media/{username}/{storage volume name}. The fstrim command can be run using these automatic mount points after enabling Trim for the USB storage drive.
Verify Trim Compatibility on the External SSDs
Our first step is to check for Trim support on the SSD, this requires installing the sg3 utilities package:
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
sudo apt install sg-utils
Fedora 32
sudo dnf install sg_utils
Next we can run the sg_vpd command to check for unmap support, in the following command /dev/sdX is the path to the block device for the USB connected SSD (this can be found by checking the `dmesg` output after connecting the drive or with the `lsblk` command)
sudo sg_vpd -a /dev/sdX | grep "Unmap"
If the command returns the following line then we can enable Trim on this device.
Unmap command supported (LBPU): 1
Enable Trim on the External SSD: Temporarily
We can enable Trim on the SSD until the drive is either disconnected, or the computer is restarted with this command, with sdX again being the block device for the USB connected SSD:
echo unmap | sudo tee /sys/block/sdX/device/scsi_disk/*/provisioning_mode
To enable Trim on Plugable's SSD docks, adapters, and enclosures on every connection
For our USBC-SATA-V: USB-C Vertical Hard Drive Dock
Our USBC-SATA-V USB-C Vertical Hard Drive Dock supports both TRIM and SMART for docked SATA SSDs.
Run the following command to enable TRIM when the enclosure is connected to the computer:
echo 'ACTION=="add|change", ATTRS{idVendor}=="174c", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1153", SUBSYSTEM=="scsi_disk", ATTR{provisioning_mode}="unmap"' | sudo tee --append /etc/udev/rules.d/10-uas-discard.rules
USBC-SATA24: 2.5-inch SATA SSD TRIM
Our USBC-SATA24 USB-C 2.5-inch SSD and HDD Adapter supports both TRIM and SMART for connected SATA SSDs.
Run the following command to enable TRIM when the enclosure is connected to the computer:
echo 'ACTION=="add|change", ATTRS{idVendor}=="174c", ATTRS{idProduct}=="55aa", SUBSYSTEM=="scsi_disk", ATTR{provisioning_mode}="unmap"' | sudo tee --append /etc/udev/rules.d/10-uas-discard.rules
USBC-NVME: USBC-NVME Enclsoure
Our USBC-NVME Tool Free M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure supports both TRIM and SMART for installed NVMe SSDs.
Run the following command to enable TRIM when the enclosure is connected to the computer:
echo 'ACTION=="add|change", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bda", ATTRS{idProduct}=="9210", SUBSYSTEM=="scsi_disk", ATTR{provisioning_mode}="unmap"' | sudo tee --append /etc/udev/rules.d/10-uas-discard.rules
How to format a hard drive or SSD in Windows 10
New hard drives and SSDs, including NVMe SSDs, need to be partitioned and formatted before the first use. Windows will not prompt to format a blank drive when connected.
Start by installing the hard drive or SSD (referred to as "drive") into the Plugable hard drive dock or drive enclosure and connect it to the computer using the provided cables and power supply if applicable.
With the drive connected to the computer, we can create a partition table, and at least one partition, then format the partition.
- Right-click on the start menu and select Disk management from the pop-up menu
- If this is a new, blank drive, the system will prompt to initialize the drive by writing a partition table to the drive with the Initialize Disk dialog
- Uninitialized drives are listed under the Select disks: section, check all that apply
- For drives over 2TB GPT is required to access the full storage capability of the drive, we also recommend GPT for SSDs and drives used with other Windows 10 systems, MBR can be used for drives that need to be used with legacy Operating Systems, for example Windows XP
- Select OK to continue
- The drive currently has no partitions, right-click on the Unallocated space and select New Simple Volume... from the drop-down menu to start the New Simple Volume Wizard
- At the introductory screen, select Next to continue
- At the Specify Volume Size screen, select Next to continue with the default value
- At the Assign Drive Letter or Path screen, select Next to use the default values, this will assign the next available drive letter to the new partition
- At the Format Partition screen, select the File system from the drop down menu, NTFS is the default and works well with Windows computers, exFAT is also compatible with macOS and Linux*. A Volume label can also be entered on this screen, this is the name of the drive. We recommend leaving the other options at the default values, Quick Format should be checked
- Select Finish to start the formatting, it should complete within a few seconds to a minute depending on the drive
- The drive should now be accessible within Windows explorer under My Computer
How to format a hard drive or SSD in macOS
New hard drives and SSDs, including NVMe SSDs, need to be partitioned and formatted before the first use. macOS will normally prompt you when a blank drive is connected with the option to Initialize the drive.
Start by installing the hard drive or SSD (referred to as "drive") into the Plugable hard drive dock or drive enclosure and connect it to the computer using the provided cables and power supply if applicable. macOS will normally prompt you when a blank drive is connected with the option to Initialize the drive.
- Either select the Initialize button on the prompt, or select Go > Utilities > Disk Utility, either option will open the Disk Utility
- Select the external drive in the left column, then the Erase button to start the formatting process, please be sure this is the correct drive before formatting
- The Erase Drive dialog drop down lets us name the drive and select the file system format from a list, the defaults are recommended
- Select the Erase button to format the drive, this will take between a couple of seconds to minutes depending on the drive
- The newly formatted drive can be used as a Time Machine backup, or used as a standard storage drive
Understanding Large SATA Drive Compatibility
Originally authored by: Jeff Everett, March 21, 2013
This post is intended to offer detailed technical information for troubleshooting issues affecting new “Advanced Format” 512e SATA disk drives.
Plugable’s full-size 3.5″ hard drive docks, the USB3-SATA-UASP1, USB3-SATA-U3 and USBC-SATA-V; these feature support for these new 512e Advanced Format drives. Our Plugable Storage System “PSS” products also support 512e large volumes (as soon as 2.5″ drive capacities increase and these drives become available in smaller sizes than 3.5″).
Some docks have a non-standard sector emulation feature that enables using capacities above 2TB on Windows XP 32 bit. But this requires that drives initialized and formatted in a special way, and NOT be used with other SATA controllers in desktop PC’s or other drive docking stations, unless those units also have a matching firmware version and support for this feature.
Plugable USB SATA docks do not support sector emulation for XP. Rather, we’ve chosen to support 3TB+ Advanced Format drives in the standard way without any emulation.
Background
The storage model used by disk makers for the last 10+ years is changing, and this post is an effort to explain how these changes work in detail. In case of issues moving drives between different systems, or when encountering issues using USB attached drives to host enterprise application data, the details here can help understand what factors are at play.
Data is stored fundamentally in bits (bits with a little b). Busses like USB often measure throughput in bits, like USB 2.0’s 480 Megabits per second (480 Mbps) or SATA III’s Gigabits per second (6 Gbp/s). Eight of these individual bits of data make up one of the capital-B “Bytes” that we usually measure data in, be it kilobytes (KB) in a document, MegaBytes (MB) in an MP3, or GigaBytes (GB) of data on a storage volume like a hard drive or SSD. Generally speaking, transfer rates industry-wide are measured in bits so transfer rates appear higher than if they were measured the same way the data is actually stored, in Bytes.
On modern solid state drives and traditional hard or even floppy disks, these bytes are grouped into sectors for actual read/write operations. Over the last decades, almost all storage drives used 512 Bytes per sector to store data since addressing individual bits and Bytes would be impractical.
Having all drives at 512 bytes per sector was nice, as there were few compatibility issues to think about when moving drives between systems or SATA docks, or when cloning them.
Evolution
512 byte sectors present problems with larger capacity drives (3TB+)- to make way for larger drives, sector sizes had to grow. This presents challenges throughout the “software stack” from the SATA hardware controllers and their firmware, their drivers, the operating system, and even to how applications may sometimes assume certain sector sizes or where sectors will start. Resulting issues are numerous and will take time for the industry to fully work out.
Over the past few years, Advanced Format Drives (512e, AF) drives reporting 512 Bytes/”logical” sector while actually using physical sectors of 4096 Bytes/”physical” sector have gained in popularity due to their higher data density potential, and resulting larger capacities. For more on how these drives work and why the industry switched, read this great ZD net post. Soon, we’ll be seeing drives that use 4096B logical and physical sectors.
Drive Type | Support/functionality |
---|---|
4K native (4K logical sector size) | Supported on the following operating systems:
|
Advanced Format or 512E (4K physical and 512-byte logical sector size) | Supported on the following operating systems:
*Except for Hyper-V. See the “Windows support in enterprise” section below. Specific requirements are listed in the following section. Run only applications and hardware that support these drives. |
512-byte native (512-byte physical and logical sector size) | Supported on all platforms. |
*from Microsoft support policy for 4K sector hard drives in Windows
As you can see from the table above, determining whether you have a 512n (drive with reported and physical sectors of 512 bytes), 512e (the 512 emulation 4096 “Advanced Format” drives with physical 4096B clusters), or 4Kn (drive with both reported and physical sectors of 4096B) is crucial to determine which Windows operating systems will be able to recognize the drive.
On OS X, large volume support is somewhat better, with effectively no limits on volume size in modern OS X versions:
*From Mac OS X: Mac OS Extended format (HFS Plus) volume and file limits
How to check your drive’s sector size
To determine if you have an 512e Advanced Format Drive, open an administrative command prompt and run the following command on the NTFS formatted volume:
fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo [your drive]
[your drive] will be the letter of the disk you’re testing, so c: or d: etc.
The output will look like this, with the bold portion below being the relevant information. Bytes per Sector of 512 and bytes per Physical Sector of 4096 indicate a 512e drive:
C:\Windows\system32>fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo h:
NTFS Volume Serial Number : 0x8a0c5e820c5e68e9
NTFS Version : 3.1
LFS Version : 1.1
Number Sectors : 0x00000001d1bcafff
Total Clusters : 0x000000003a3795ff
Free Clusters : 0x000000003a3671d7
Total Reserved : 0x0000000000000000
Bytes Per Sector : 512
Bytes Per Physical Sector : 4096
Bytes Per Cluster : 4096
Bytes Per FileRecord Segment : 1024
Clusters Per FileRecord Segment : 0
Mft Valid Data Length : 0x0000000000040000
Mft Start Lcn : 0x00000000000c0000
Mft2 Start Lcn : 0x0000000000000002
Mft Zone Start : 0x00000000000c0000
Mft Zone End : 0x00000000000cc820
Resource Manager Identifier : DB59D441-7AD6-11E2-BEE8-00027232D73D’
If your drive reports:
Bytes Per Sector : 512
Bytes Per Physical Sector : 512
This one of the 512n volumes commonly used over the last decade. Support for these drives is universal.
If your drive reports:
Bytes Per Sector : 512
Bytes Per Physical Sector : 4096
The volume is operating in 512e mode, and should be recognized by most Windows Vista (SP1 and later) systems, as well as by newer Windows 7 and 8 PC’s. Windows 7 and Server 2008 users who do not have Service Pack 1 installed need a system update for 512e compatibility.
Macs should also be able to see the volume with no issue, however do not have native NTFS write capabilities, so they may only be able to read the drive.
If your drive reports:
Bytes Per Sector : 4096
Bytes Per Physical Sector : 4096
Then the drive has been formatted with non-standard sector emulation, in order to support 3TB+ drives on Windows XP.
A special release of firmware for the Plugable USB3-SATA-U3 (firmware v12092681f600) is available by special request that uses this non-standard emulation strategy. However, it is not the default and is generally not recommended as it limits moving the drive to other docks with the same emulation strategy.
How to clean and re-initialize a volume
Moving volumes initialized with 4096B sector re-emulation to other SATA controllers (other drive docks or PC SATA connections) may result in drives that are visible in disk manager but with no partitions, and no option to re-format the drive since the “new” (non U3) SATA controller doesn’t support the 4096B sector re-emulation. In this case, wiping the drive is necessary to use it on the new controller.
Wiping a misaligned drive’s partition table will allow the volume to be re-initialized as though it were new, and a new partition table may be written when the disk is re-formatted.
Performing the following steps will destroy all data on the disk selected, so these steps must be performed with extreme caution.
To check for all attached volumes, open an administrative command prompt and enter diskpart, then enter the list disk command as shown below, and select the disk of your choice to clean. After selecting whichever disk number you want to wipe, the clean command will destroy the partition table and allow you to re-initialize the volume.
C:\Windows\system32>diskpart
Microsoft DiskPart version 6.2.9200
Copyright (C) 1999-2012 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: GRANDCENTRAL
DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
——– ————- ——- ——- — —
Disk 0 Online 111 GB 1024 KB
Disk 1 Online 1863 GB 0 B
Disk 2 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 3 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 4 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 5 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 6 Online 1862 GB 0 B
Disk 7 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 8 Online 465 GB 0 B
DISKPART> select disk 8
Disk 8 is now the selected disk.
DISKPART> clean
DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.
DISKPART>
From here the disk is blank and can be re-initialized and formatted with whatever partitions are desired. Most consumers will not need to be aware of the other issues that can arise with Advanced Format volumes in enterprise applications.
Partition Alignment
If the performance of your 512e large volume has degraded when being moved from system to system, partition alignment issues may be the cause. Issues with non-bootable cloned volumes may also be due to improperly aligned partitions. Western Digital and Hitachi offer drive alignment utilities for affected operating systems. Seagate drives should not require alignment. Customers with other brands of drives will need to check with the manufacturer of their drive to determine if an alignment tool is available and/or necessary. Partition alignment issues often affect older Windows Vista and Windows XP systems where drives are frequently accessed on other operating systems.
Before initializing a new drive, using a large volume with Windows XP, or especially before cloning an Advanced Format Western Digital drive, please check the chart below to determine if aligning your drive is necessary for maximum performance and compatibility with your software environment.
Using your WD Advanced Format Hard Drive with a Windows Operating System may require you to run the WD Align Windows software utility after you install your operating system or partition and format the drive as a secondary drive. The WD Align software aligns existing partitions on the Advanced Format drive to ensure it provides full performance for certain configurations. (Please see table for configuration details)
Running Hitachi’s “HGST Align” tool may be necessary for Windows XP or Windows Vista users. Windows 7 and Windows 8 users should not need to use this utility.
Windows support in the enterprise
Most end-users won’t need to worry about drive sector sizes, partition alignment, or any of the details above. Due to the specific issues documented by Microsoft with some of their enterprise applications, thorough planning for drive purchasing and migration is crucial in enterprise environments leveraging the following technologies:
- Hyper-V: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2515143
- Microsoft SQL Server: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/psssql/archive/2011/01/13/sql-server-new-drives-use-4k-sector-size.aspx
- Windows Home Server v1: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2385637
- Microsoft Exchange Server: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee832792.aspx#Phys
- Third-party applications and hardware: Applications and hardware devices may have reliability and performance issues when they are connected to these new drives. Contact your application and hardware vendors about their support policy for these drives.
*from “Microsoft support policy for 4K sector hard drives in Windows.”
For more details on 512e and 4Kn Advanced Format support across Windows versions, application specific issues, other known issues, and unsupported scenarios, read Microsoft support policy for 4K sector hard drives in Windows.
Further details on the evolution from 512n to 512e and 4Kn drives are available in this presentation from IDEMA (International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association).
Deeper technical details for driver developers are available in Microsoft’s “Advanced format (4K) disk compatibility update (Windows)” article.