Newer hard drives will soon be running a new standard - Polidicks

[quote]Hard drives are about to undergo one of the biggest format shifts in 30 years. By early 2011 all hard drives will use an "advanced format" that changes how they go about saving the data people store on them. The move to the advanced format will make it easier for hard drive makers to produce bigger drives that use less power and are more reliable. However, it might mean problems for Windows XP users who swap an old drive for one using the changed format. [b]Error codes[/b] Since the days of the venerable DOS operating system, the space on a hard drive has been formatted into blocks 512 bytes in size. The 512 byte sector became standardised thanks to IBM which used it on floppy disks. While 512 bytes was useful when hard drives were only a few megabytes in size, it makes less sense when drives can hold a terabyte (1000 gigabytes), or more of data. Floppy disks, Eyewire The 512 byte format dates from the days of the floppy "The technology has changed but that fundamental building block of formatting has not," said David Burks, a product marketing manager for storage firm Seagate. This fine resolution on hard drives is causing a problem, he said, because of the wasted space associated with each tiny block. Each 512 byte sector has a marker showing where it begins and an area dedicated to storing error correction codes. In addition a tiny gap has to be left between each sector. In large drives this wasted space where data cannot be stored can take up a significant proportion of the drive. Moving to an advanced format of 4K sectors means about eight times less wasted space but will allow drives to devote twice as much space per block to error correction. "You can get yourself into a corner where you cannot squeeze much more onto the disk," said Steve Perkins, a technical consultant for Western Digital. This shift also allows manufacturers to make more efficient use of the real estate on a hard drive. "We can put more data on the disk," he said. "It's about 7-11% more efficient as a format." [b]Slow down[/b] Through the International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association (Idema) all hard drive makers have committed to adopting the 4K advanced format by the end of January 2011. Hard drive makers have begun an education and awareness campaign to let people know about the advanced format and to warn about the problems it could inflict on users of older operating systems such as Windows XP. This is because Windows XP was released before the 4K format was decided upon. "The 512 byte sector assumption is ensconced into a lot of the aspects of computer architecture," said Mr Burks from Seagate. By contrast, Windows 7, Vista, OS X Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard and versions of the Linux kernel released after September 2009 are all 4K aware. To help Windows XP cope, advanced format drives will be able to pretend they still use sectors 512 bytes in size. When reading data from a drive this emulation will go unnoticed. However, said Mr Burks, in some situations writing data could hit performance. In some cases the drive will take two steps to write data rather than one and introduce a delay of about 5 milliseconds. "All other things being equal you will have a noticeable hard drive reduction in performance," said Mr Burks, adding that, in some circumstances, it could make a drive 10% slower. In a bid to limit the misalignment, hard drive makers are producing software that ensures 512 sectors line up with 4K ones. Those most likely to see the performance problems are those building their own computers or swapping out an old drive for one that uses the new format. [/quote] [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8557144.stm]***SOURCE***[/url] This is awesome for those people who use 7 but for the older folks this fucking blows as it means that while XP will struggle a little, the far more older operating systems will not be able to use the drive at all possibly unless they support 4096 byte sectoring which from past experience, MS-DOS does not support.

I laughed when I realized that soon, my hard drives will be obsolete. It's not the kind of thing you anticipate that happening to.

not good

Considering that XP is 9 years old this years, it's not unreasonable for it to be unsupported.

[QUOTE=toxicpiano;20664244]Considering that XP is 9 years old this years, it's not unreasonable for it to be unsupported.[/QUOTE] It's amazing how a 9 year old OS has held up for so long though

[QUOTE=toxicpiano;20664244]Considering that XP is 9 years old this years, it's not unreasonable for it to be unsupported.[/QUOTE] XP is 8 years old. It was released in 2002.

Well that sucks. I like my XP. I've been using it since it came out and am too used to it to bother switching.

Why would anyone use anything older than XP anyway? Soon XP will become obsolete too.

[QUOTE=Kyle902;20664285]XP is 8 years old. It was released in 2002.[/QUOTE] Wrong: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_xp[/url] [url]http://www.pcworld.com/article/49606/windows_xp_to_ship_october_25.html[/url] [url]http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2001/aug01/08-24WinXPRTMPR.mspx[/url]

[QUOTE=Ama-zake;20664269]It's amazing how a 9 year old OS has held up for so long though[/QUOTE] Now that you mention it, it is. Windows 2000 died a couple of years after XP was released.

[QUOTE=R0Lond;20664235]not good[/QUOTE] How the fuck is this not good? It's fucking great.

Well xp was amazing for a while, but I guess I'm forced into 7, which isn't that bad,

Who cares about XP anymore?

One more step forward! Yay for science!

[QUOTE=M_u_d;20664738]Who cares about XP anymore?[/QUOTE] Are you serious? XP may be the past to gamers but definitely not to large businesses.

So what does this mean for us? Bigger, cheaper hard drives or what? [editline]04:53PM[/editline] [QUOTE=MUFC2007;20665161]Are you serious? XP may be the past to gamers but definitely not to large businesses.[/QUOTE] Then they can buy old hard drives or upgrade can't they.

If you're still using XP there's something wrong with you.

[QUOTE=BANNED USER;20665220]If you're still using XP there's something wrong with you.[/QUOTE] I've just seen no reason to switch.

Oh wow, and i only just bought a few new drives.

[QUOTE=toxicpiano;20664314]Wrong: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_xp[/url] [url]http://www.pcworld.com/article/49606/windows_xp_to_ship_october_25.html[/url] [url]http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2001/aug01/08-24WinXPRTMPR.mspx[/url][/QUOTE] Ok mate calm down.

How apt, today was the day my hard drive decided to stop working.

[QUOTE=MUFC2007;20665161]Are you serious? XP may be the past to gamers but definitely not to large businesses.[/QUOTE] Tesco is the third largest employer in Britain, the largest supermarket chain in Britain, and all of their machines are upgraded to windows 7 Enterprise. They're pretty large, they're not using XP.

It won't happen anyways. We all know it. It's just scientists waving their dicks, it's the same with the 14 TB/s router they released now. Yeah, the scientists must have the biggest dick ever, but it isn't useful for the next 100 years or so.

[QUOTE=M_u_d;20664738]Who cares about XP anymore?[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=BANNED USER;20665220]If you're still using XP there's something wrong with you.[/QUOTE] According to Wikipedia, XP still holds over 50% of the OS marketshare worldwide. Probably because XP is still a great OS for people who don't need 64-bit, and because the release of Vista was plagued with horror stories.

[QUOTE=firstblood;20665377]Ok mate calm down.[/QUOTE] [IMG]http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/llog/duty_calls.png[/IMG]

[QUOTE=Zeke129;20664230]I laughed when I realized that soon, my hard drives will be obsolete. It's not the kind of thing you anticipate that happening to.[/QUOTE] Your hard drives became obsolete the moment SSD came into existence.

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;20665266]I've just seen no reason to switch.[/QUOTE] Well there you go, a reason to switch! Really though, I think you'd like switching to Windows 7. It might take a little while to get used to, but it really is better.

ITT: XP users -vs- 7/Vista users About the new hard drives, if they're cheap I'll get them. I can always use more space for games.

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;20665266]I've just seen no reason to switch.[/QUOTE] This. Mine's caused me no problems, no viruses and it's run everything save a very few new games that I don't care about. It was bad enough that a lot of gamers were pushed to upgrade because they simply renamed DX9 to DX10, marketed it better and dropped support for XP. Least the hard-drive gives me a solid reason to switch, kinda.

So what's the price per jiggabite gonna be?