Western Digital crams even more storage capacity into hard disks

Posted on 17 Dec 2009 at 11:42

Western Digital has developed a new technology that squeezes even more data onto hard disks than at present.

A hard disk using Western Digital's new Advanced Format technology could have seven to 11 per cent more storage space than a standard hard disk. This doesn't sound like much, but a 1TB hard disk with Advanced Format could gain as much as 100GB of extra capacity.

Advanced Format works by having disk sectors that are 4,096 bytes in size, instead of the smaller 512 byte sectors used currently. Advanced Format also stores error correction data more efficiently than current disks.

Western Digital is phasing in Advanced Format gradually. The first disks to use will be WD's Caviar Green range and other hard disk manufacturers plan to adopt the technology too. Advanced Format disks should work fine with Windows Vista and 7, but XP users will need to use WD's Align utility to get the best performance out of an Advanced Format disk.

Author: Alan Lu

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