Windows Home Server: Newer drives a problem
Microsoft is warning users of Windows Home Server to take care when buying new hard drives. Those using the 4k sector format, which will be the standard from next year, may cause significant performance problems with the system.
The problem involves a system marked as “Advanced Format sector disks.” They store data in sectors that are four kilobytes each rather than the current standard of 512 bytes.
The idea of the larger sector size is to cut down on the number of sectors and thus the amount of total disk space used for the markers and spacing that appear in each individual sector. Some of the saved space will be used for more detailed error codes to improve reliability.
That’s already led to predictions of performance problems with Windows XP, which was created before the idea of a 4k sector was anything more than a concept. Though XP works with the drives, it has to adjust the way it breaks up data when writing, slowing the process down.
Similar problems are now confirmed as affecting Windows Home Server, the Microsoft product that is marketed mainly as a way to easily and automatically back up entire drives, with media streaming also emphasized in the promotion of the system.
Microsoft has now issued an advisory against using 4k sector drives in the server machine as users “will experience performance degradation”. The firm notes that it s “critical” that users check drives carefully as some 4k drives are extremely close in appearance and other specifications to the 512 byte counterpart from the same manufacturer.
The newer drives should work without problems in machines that act as a client on a Windows Home Server system.
According to Microsoft, the next edition of Windows Home Server (currently at the public beta stage) should fix the compatibility problems.
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