ixion
Dabbler
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2011
- Messages
- 30
I'm planning to purchase some Seagate Exos X16 (model ST16000NM001G) 16TB drives. They come formatted in 512e by default, but they support "Fast Format" to convert to 4Kn so that they appear as a true 4Kn to the OS. This is documented in the Seagate documentation, but they neglect to say how you do it, and with what tool.
What tool or command line option can I use to do this? Do you have to use the Seagate Seatools (it doesn't even appear to support it)? Does BSD or Windows support this? Or sg_format? Or parted? I've search all over the web and cannot find any information on this.
PS- Yes, I know that using ashift=12 works fine with 512e drives, that's not my question, I want to convert the drives to 4Kn using the Fast Format feature. Thanks.
UPDATE:
Here's the solution for Windows (you can do it in Linux also, with similar command line options)
Download SeaChest_Lite here:
https://www.seagate.com/support/software/seachest/
In an elevated (admin) Command Prompt window, scan for your drive with the command:
You should see your drive ID something like "PD1" for example.
Check to see if the drive supports changing the sector size using Fast Format:
Change the format from 512e to 4Kn:
What tool or command line option can I use to do this? Do you have to use the Seagate Seatools (it doesn't even appear to support it)? Does BSD or Windows support this? Or sg_format? Or parted? I've search all over the web and cannot find any information on this.
PS- Yes, I know that using ashift=12 works fine with 512e drives, that's not my question, I want to convert the drives to 4Kn using the Fast Format feature. Thanks.
UPDATE:
Here's the solution for Windows (you can do it in Linux also, with similar command line options)
Download SeaChest_Lite here:
https://www.seagate.com/support/software/seachest/
In an elevated (admin) Command Prompt window, scan for your drive with the command:
Code:
SeaChest_Lite --scan
You should see your drive ID something like "PD1" for example.
Check to see if the drive supports changing the sector size using Fast Format:
Code:
SeaChest_Lite --device PD1 --showSupportedSectorSizes
Change the format from 512e to 4Kn:
Code:
SeaChest_Lite --device PD1 --setSectorSize 4096
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