"Advanced format drives"?

Jul 16, 2013
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Hey guys,

I'm building my rig, and the bag that it comes in says something about that it may require "advanced formating" and directs me to this website:
http://www.wdc.com/global/products/features/?id=7&language=1

I'm planning to put my OS on this drive, as it is the only one I bought, but I may want to switch to a solid-state drive a few upgrades down the road if things are too slow. So, in short, what does all of that technical stuff mean for me?

Oh and this may be a silly question, but on the hardware side I can still just lock it into the drive bay and plug it in right? Just wondering if I need to mess with any "jumpers" or anything.

Thanks for helping me with this build guys, this community has really helped me along with this process :)
 
Solution
If you plan to do a fresh install and are not using XP, do not worry about it. It would matter if you have your computer already set up and were cloning your old operating to your new drive. If you copy over your current operating system (or partitions) to a brand new SSD, you will want to use the migration tool provided by the SSD company. If you do a fresh install on your SSD, you won't need to worry as long as you are using an OS later than XP.

I don't quite understand why, but if it is not properly aligned, it causes the hard drive to write slower which can cause system slow-downs.

The drive should be set to automatic (or it may not ship have a jumper which would be automatic settings). You would only have to worry about...

pyro226

Distinguished
Sep 22, 2011
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18,760
If you plan to do a fresh install and are not using XP, do not worry about it. It would matter if you have your computer already set up and were cloning your old operating to your new drive. If you copy over your current operating system (or partitions) to a brand new SSD, you will want to use the migration tool provided by the SSD company. If you do a fresh install on your SSD, you won't need to worry as long as you are using an OS later than XP.

I don't quite understand why, but if it is not properly aligned, it causes the hard drive to write slower which can cause system slow-downs.

The drive should be set to automatic (or it may not ship have a jumper which would be automatic settings). You would only have to worry about jumpers if you are using multiple disks or something isn't working right. Should be fine though. Just lock it in, and load it up (make sure motherboard is set to read CD first so you can install operating sytem). The operating system will format it with installation. If you add another hard drive later for a data drive, you will need to manually format the new data drive (drives are left unformatted by the manufacturer).
 
Solution