14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has made available an update designed to improve compatibility between the latest versions of Windows client and server and Advanced Format Disks.
With the advent of Advanced Format disks the default size of physical sectors has been increased considerably, from just 512 bytes to no less than 4096 bytes (4 KB).
This change however, did manage to introduce a few problems. I have already told Softpedia readers about issues that Windows 7 had with Advanced Format disks back in January 2011.
“Because disks are only able to perform physical media updates in the granularity of the physical sector (4 KB in this case), a 512 byte write that is directed to the disk will require some additional work in order to be completed,” the software giant said.
“This work comes at the cost of performance and reliability, with the specific cost varying based on the workload and hardware implementation. To avoid this additional work, applications must be updated to natively support writes that are based on the 4 KB sector granularity.”
Now, customers that leverage 4KB physical sector size disks which still maintain a 512 byte logical addressing interface, referred to as “512-byte emulation disks,” or “512e,” can download a refresh from Microsoft set up to improve compatibility.
KB 982018 is available free of charge to users running Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but also Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.
“This KB article introduces new storage infrastructure to support querying for the physical sector size of the storage device. Additionally, this KB article introduces support in certain key system components for these kinds of disks in order to improve performance, reliability, and general interoperability,” the company added.
According to Microsoft there are no less than five issues addressed with the release of KB 982018 that had no fix ahead of its release.
Customers can find the download links below as well as get additional details from the Knowledge Base article associated with the Windows 7 SP1 Advanced Format disks compatibility update. - All supported x86-based versions of Windows 7
- All supported x64-based versions of Windows 7
- All supported x64-based versions of Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows 7 SP1 RTM and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 RTM are available for download here.