I bought this drive recently and found no Advanced Format information on the label. I just wanted to know if it is an Advanced Format drive or not, so that I could know which OS should be used for partitioning.
http://products.wdc.com/library/matrix/eng/2178-771112.pdf
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/ovr/eng/2178-001010.pdf
… indicate it is not AF.
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i have that drive and assumed it was i guess …never thought about it.
learn something new everyday lol
According to this document (dated Jan 2013), the WD1002FAEX IS an Advanced Format drive.
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-771434.pdf
As for the label, none of the new drives (manufactured after December 2012) have ‘Advanced Format’ information on the drive labels. I said December 2012 because I myself purchased a WD Blue drive (WD10EZEX) in January 2013, which was manufactured in Dec 2012, because the label had no mention of the words ‘Advanced Format’ and no ‘Advanced Format’ logo. I was under the impression that only WD Green drives were AF drives as I had seen several images of labels of WD Green drives ONLY on the Internet.
If you check out the obscure PDF documents in ‘WD Library’, you will find out that WD Black, WD Green, WD Red drives and WD VelociRaptor ALL use Advanced Format now. I am not sure of WD Blue as the document in the ‘Library’ is dated June 2012. From what I know for sure, the WD Blue models WD10EZEX and WD7500AZEX are AF drives. I don’t know about the rest. I myself wanted to know which Blue models DO NOT use Advanced Format. But, I haven’t got an accurate reply from WD personnel. The only reply I got said “Look at the drive label”. The sad thing is the labels do not provide any information about Advanced Format now. Because of that, I have indefinitely postponed purchasing any new WD drives.
To check if your particular unit is an Advanced Format or not, try using the Disk Alignment Test program. It is a free tool (and an excellent one I must add) that detects if your drive is AF or not and also detects if your partitions are aligned or not.
Hi well it is not only WD that has advanced format drives check the other manufacture out, as now there are really only 2 companies that manufacture mechanical drives. They have the same thing no mention on the label if it is AF, so I guess if you dont want a AF drive soon you will not have a PC because they are all going that way. Funny how things change in the PC world
