WD Red 2Tb -- Advanced Format

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

From what I’ve seen, Advanced Format drives can not be used (reliably) to make Windows 7 system image backups.  See, for example, this thread:  http://community.wdc.com/t5/External-Drives-for-PC/Can-not-create-System-Image-with-Windows-7-Error-Code-0x8078002A/td-p/243958

So, before I buy, are the WD Red 2TB drives AF or not?

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Hi yes they are advanced format drives.   http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-771442.pdf

3

Thanks.  I missed that part on the data sheet. 

Do you (or anyone) have a definitive answer to whether Windows 7 system image backups work on AF drives?  The thread I linked to in my original post suggests a problem, but the MS KB article says

If you are using a logical sector drive of a size other than 512 bytes, Windows system image backup and restore operations may fail, and you receive the following error message:

I guess the more pertinent question is whether the WD Red drivers are 512e AF drives (that is, report 512 byte logical sectors) or whether they are “4096 native” AF drives.  I assume that they are “Advanced Format 512e” … but it would be nice to know for sure.