Solved "Advanced Format" hard drives

[OvenMaster]

I'm thinking of adding a WD 10EZEX 1TB hard drive to my system so I can eventually get rid of my two IDE drives - either they will eventually break down at some point (one is 11 years old) or my next mobo won't have an IDE port.

This new WD drive has what's called "Advanced Format".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format
None of my other drives have 4KB sectors or 512 byte sector emulation; they're all old school 512 bytes per sector.

Windows 7 will format the new drive to work with the OS with no problems. That's fine. MY question is how compatible will this new AF drive be with programs like Defraggler, Recuva, EaseUS Partition Manager or MiniTool Partition Wizard, and most importantly, Macrium Reflect Free, that deal with data on a sector by sector basis?

Any Googling of this shows very little info; certainly not enough for me to come to any firm conclusions. Has anyone had any problems or issues with these AF drives?

 

[SIW2]

They work fine. Your drive emulates 512.

 

[OvenMaster]

Okay, got it. Thanks much.
If I do have problems, well, I'll know where to turn.

 

[dmeston1975]

I did find out that it can have an effect depending on what file types you are storing ie if you are storing large media files like films then use a larger sector size if you have lots of smaller files docs etc. then go with a smaller sector size otherwise you could be wasting space.

Example
File size = 1 kb will take up 4 Kb if saved on a disk with 4 kb sectors
File size = 1 Kb will take up 1 Kb if saved on a disk with 512b sectors

PS I use most of the programs you listed above regularly without any problems.

 

[OvenMaster]

Okay, I understand. In order to avoid problems, I'll just let Windows use the default sector size when full-formatting the drive. All my drives have pretty much mixed use - anywhere from 4.7GB DVD ISOs down to 1KB shortcuts.