Path: csiph.com!au2pb.net!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feeder01.blueworldhosting.com!border2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.earthlink.com!news.earthlink.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2015 16:51:11 -0600 From: ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) Subject: Re: Can't see the partitions on my external SATA HDD when using different adapter/controllers (Vantec vs. no brand name)? Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage,comp.sys.mac.system References: <1me348y.kz3wn9y8yv2tN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz> <1me3cbz.1gjb0y5xiv0t3N%dempson@actrix.gen.nz> <1me9juu.5o7rp21khfw52N%dempson@actrix.gen.nz> <0bCdnW2IEt0FNc3LnZ2dnUU7-aWdnZ2d@earthlink.com> <1mea86w.hf27c81d2kzunN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz> User-Agent: tin/2.2.1-20140504 ("Tober an Righ") (UNIX) (Linux/4.1.3-200.fc22.x86_64 (x86_64)) Message-ID: Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2015 16:51:12 -0600 Lines: 54 X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 71.103.224.66 X-Trace: sv3-nU5Gr9fgCLc3+J6V0a9PnHxla6I6AMw44NUzbCdzl73u117eECrYo6J+Hiflo3SfaUADeOG0YbTVttV!VPM5+4oWeMhxqYhDWojzgcxvjkmes7BFFVdf7dKkGzXp+ZvqdUKKODr7Paui3H5A//8aH6othbUI!OiHRjSzHu6GrDaWIhqMY8sGgRZzKBx4= X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 X-Original-Bytes: 4330 Xref: csiph.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage:6620 comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage:1101 comp.sys.mac.system:85333 Interesting and thanks. I looked at Vantec's web site and saw this http://www.vantecusa.com/en/faq/index 's FAQ #13: "Will the CB-ISATAU2 work with Advanced Format (4Ksector) Drives? No, it will not work with Advanced Format (4K sector) Drives. We do have other product that will like CB-ISA200-U3 or CB-ISATAU3." Huh? How come I was able to format it and use it? Obviously, it didn't work with the other adapters after that. :/ I wonder if this problem will still occur if connected to desktops' motherboards inside computers. ... > It is specific to "Advanced Format" (4K sector) drives, which are newer > ones, but they exist in capacities smaller than 2 TB (judging from the > list of models at Western Digital). > What I don't know is whether your adapters change behaviour depending on > drive capacity. It seems most likely adapter is changing behaviour > depending on drive capacity. For your current WD 2 GB drive it is > passing through the 4K sector size. It might behave differently with > smaller capacity drives that use 4K sectors. > I'm assuming your other adapters simply don't support 4K sectors, but it > is also possible they change behaviour for drive capacities over 2 TB, > because drives over 2 TB are effectively unusable by Windows XP (or > earlier), so there is little need to force 512 byte sectors with drives > over 2 TB. ... > The sector size is an integral feature of the drive mechanism: either > 512 bytes or 4096 bytes per sector. Drives with 4K sectors ("Advanced > Format") support a backward compatibility mode ("512e") which allows > them to work with older OS versions which only understand 512 byte > sectors, but with a newer OS the native 4K sector size is used. > Adding a USB to SATA bridge into the path introduces an additional > variable: whether the bridge/adapter supports 4K sectors. If it doesn't, > the host is forced to use 512 byte sectors and is unable to detect that > the drive is really using 4K sectors. > In theory, an OS new enough to support 4K sectors could opt to use 512 > byte emulation mode even if the drive has 4K sectors, but I haven't > spotted a way to force that in OS X. This would have performance > disadvantages. ... -- Quote of the Week: "Yo mama's glasses are so thick, she can burn ants with them." --unknown Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly. /\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.home.dhs.org (Personal Web Site) / /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net | |o o| | \ _ / Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail privately. If credit- ( ) ing, then please kindly use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.