SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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bezerk
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Post by bezerk » Sat Sep 18, 2010 12:42 pm

Would very much like to have the spinup times [from suspend to RAM/ACPI S3] for the WD20EARS-00MVWB0 (=3 platter version) and for the F4EG ?!

Anyone ?

zsero
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Post by zsero » Sun Sep 19, 2010 5:09 pm

zoocey wrote:Nice benchmark results thanks, A 2TB F4 Would be mighty tempting if they ever make it to my neck of the woods.

It would be great if you could benchmark NCQ performance for the F4 and even some other drives.

The easiest way I know of to do it is running multiple instances of HD_Speed from http://www.steelbytes.com/?mid=20

Set the block size to 256KB for all instances. Select the right drive.
Run a couple of instances Set Position % at 0 for one and 50 for the other. Hit start and after a minute take a screenshot showing all windows.
If you could do the same with 3 instances at 0, 33, 66 and 4 at 0, 25, 50, 75. You should hit the reset button between runs to clear the graph
that would be great.

For comparisons sake heres the results of my early model wd20ears
1: http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/5117/82134069.png
2: http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/2715/26666074.png
3. http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/4580/64679672.png
4. http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/5723/36468117.png
10. http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/6280/25961348.png
zoocey, I have been using that utility for many endless nights at a time, and all I could conclude is that is's a broken test for multithreaded performance. It just doesn't make sense that none of the modern drives get above 6-7 mb/s in a single thread. Test multithreaded things with specific utilities _written_ to support queue depth, or just use robocopy in windows 7, which supports the multithreaded switch, and try it with different values.

likwidsh0k
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Post by likwidsh0k » Sun Sep 19, 2010 10:05 pm

Flanno wrote:First off, I can hear them seek when I run the HDTune read test but they don't cause the case to hum like the blacks do or make weird seeking noises like my old F3's. They are pretty quiet.

Note : I have multiple Samsung, WD Green and WD Black drives.
Thanks Flanno, I have 2 WD 1TB greens and a WD RE4 2TB and when I put in a Samsung F3 1TB 7200 to replace my crashed Seagate sys drive I got the humming sound (my thread - Samsung F3 1TB whine?
) that some people report especially with a case full of WDs. Is that the humming you are referring to?

hehazone
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Location: UK

Post by hehazone » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:47 am

After reading this post, I think my HD204UI is faulty :(

hxxp://img683.imageshack.us/img683/2969/20100922171054.png
(Damn I don't have enough post to post a link)

I have already tried to change the SATA cable, motherboard, or even PSU...
My other drives works just fine...

JazzJackRabbit
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Post by JazzJackRabbit » Thu Sep 23, 2010 8:06 am

Heh, I'll have to remember to run transfer rate test on mine then...

ficod
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Post by ficod » Fri Sep 24, 2010 1:13 am

the new F4EG seem to have a great combination of performance/noise/power...

However 2 things:
1) I can't find any F4EG here in Italy
2) I don't need that much space (sure I'd buy one because of the good price)

I've Heard that F4EG performs +20%better than F3, wow...

Any alternatives? Will there be a 1platter f4?

zsero
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Location: Edinburgh, Scotland

Post by zsero » Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:51 pm

hehazone wrote:After reading this post, I think my HD204UI is faulty :(

hxxp://img683.imageshack.us/img683/2969/20100922171054.png
(Damn I don't have enough post to post a link)

I have already tried to change the SATA cable, motherboard, or even PSU...
My other drives works just fine...
Did you format it in Windows XP or Server 2003? The repeating spikes could be a problem with 4K sectors, but I don't know if this tool work on drive or on partition level.

mkk
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by mkk » Sat Oct 16, 2010 2:26 pm

Picked up two of these HD204UI and wasn't completely sure what to expect since I haven't had a 5400RPM desktop drive for a loong time. Perhaps that's why I was surprised to find that practical performance isn't far from the 7200RPM F3(HD103SJ) drives of the previous platter generation, at least not for a regular single user system. I ran my old fav game map launching test in Call of Duty 4 and these HD204UI's were only trailing the HD103SJ's by less than 20%. Not very noticeable (especially since if I play a particular game much then I run it from SSD) and I'm sure for say a HTPC system it would do just fine to have Windows on it too. Now I'm preparing to move all five preinstalled 7200RPM drives (3x HD103SJ, 2x HD642JJ) off my main system, in order to make the noise level of the system less dependent on having drives remaining asleep as oftenly as possible. By the way the HD204UI drives seem to take a second or so longer to spin up from sleep, probably because of their low power envelope. Otherwise one might think that 5400RPM might be reached faster but in most systems the drive spinup time will not be too important. Even less so when the drives require little power and produce much less noise.

Subjectively the idle high pitched motor noice is excellent and therein lies the big difference to me. By mere feel the vibrations are also at least noticeably less of a problem with these three platter drives compared to any of the dozen of various two platter 7200RPM drives that I've had populating the system in recent years. Vibrations can be relatively easy for the experienced silencer to dampen in most systems, but in less than ideal situations this factor could be a godsend. All in all I suspect that I'll never buy a 7200RPM drive again.

I haven't quite got a hold on this 512/4k sector thingie but after a simple partitioning and default formatting in Windows 7 I haven't noticed any performance issues. I've ran a couple of benchmarks and practical file copying tests, but here's the run-of-the-mill HD Tach shot.
Image

IdontexistM8
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by IdontexistM8 » Mon Oct 18, 2010 11:45 am

I've just put one in an external caddy and IMO the seek noise is noticeably quieter than a HD154UI. I did a full format and you'd barely know it was there. I'd intended to use it as purely a backup drive but if it impresses me further after I've copied a large bulk of files I may employ it for daily use or at least buy another.

One negative aside, I received another 'grey import' drive which means if I do have to RMA it at a later date Samsung won't touch it and I'll be forced to go through the retailer. This is a UK specific issue which has been debated elsewhere quite a bit recently, whether it extends to other places I don't know. One thing for sure it's impossible to tell whether you'll get a 'UK drive' or not. It doesn't appear to be down to specific retailers, indeed you can buy one drive one week and another the next from same retailer and they can have different warranty statuses. Samsung UK are well aware of the situation, from what I've been told this is down to Samsung HQ's policy direct from Korea. Rexo, Samsung's RMA partner in the UK, are exceptionally good, so if you can find a 'UK drive' then you're well covered. As I only buy Samsung mechanical drives I'd be happy to pay a little bit more to be certain but you simply can't unless you can check the serial prior to buying and that ain't gonna happen.

est1984
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by est1984 » Wed Oct 20, 2010 11:14 am

HD204UI/Z4

I am about to purchase about 6 of these, can someone confirm for me that they are exactly 2TB, not 2TB but can only use something like 1.7TB

IdontexistM8
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by IdontexistM8 » Wed Oct 20, 2010 11:26 am

est1984 wrote:HD204UI/Z4

I am about to purchase about 6 of these, can someone confirm for me that they are exactly 2TB, not 2TB but can only use something like 1.7TB
They are 2,000,396,288,000 bytes = 1.81TB

webwiznz2
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by webwiznz2 » Sat Nov 06, 2010 6:53 pm

Anyone who gets multiple of these can you please let us know what the vibration variance is? Mines bad.

dragonfruit
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by dragonfruit » Mon Nov 08, 2010 2:33 pm

Correct me if I am wrong, but after reading this article on 4k sectors:
http://seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/ ... ectors.pdf
I assume that it is possible to align Advanced Format drives (those ones, which are not provided with a special aligning software by HD manufacturer) for Windows XP usage with 3rd party 4k-aware partitioning utility:
"The most critical aspect of a smooth and successful transition to 4K sectors used in Advanced Format is to promote the use of 4K-aware hard drive partitioning tools."
"When using third-party software or utilities to create hard drive partitions, check with your vendor to make sure they are updated and confirmed to be 4K aware."
http://seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/ ... ectors.pdf

So to align properly for Win XP usage for example Samsung 2TB F4EG HD204UI one has to find a 3rd party software tool for partitioning, which is 4k-aware, and use that software to partition such disk instead of Windows XP Disk Manager.

Are there any free 4k-aware partitioning tools for Windows XP?

Also would re-aligning utilities provided by WD and Seagate work with other manufacturers HDs like Samsung?

From that article I learnt also that even the newer OSes like Windows 7 do not use 4k sectors directly, they still have to use 512 B sectors. Those newer systems are only capable of aligning Advanced Format hard drives properly during their partitioning, without the need to use 3rd party 4K-aware partitioning software, and that's all:
"there are many aspects of modern computing systems that continue to assume that sectors are always 512 bytes. To transition the entire industry over to the new 4K standard and expect all of these legacy assumptions to suddenly change is simply not realistic. Over time, the implementation of native 4K sectors, where both host and hard drive exchange data in 4K blocks, will take place. Until then, hard drive manufacturers will implement the 4K sector transition in conjunction with a technique called 512-byte sector emulation."
http://seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/ ... ectors.pdf

"The sector size increase, described by Advanced Format, occurs at the hard drive media level. Host systems will continue to request and receive data from the hard drive in 512-byte sector sizes. However, the translation from 4096-byte sectors in the hard drive to the 512-byte sectors in the host will be managed in the hard drive. This process is called 512-byte emulation. It’s important that every drive partition start with an LBA offset that is aligned to the drive’s physical 4K sector. If partitions are un-aligned, then hard drive performance will be degraded."
"How can partition misalignment conditions be managed?
The first management step is to avoid misaligned conditions in the first place. This can be achieved by creating hard drive partitions with a 4K aware version of your operating system or through a hard drive imaging software product."
"The second method to managing misaligned partitions is to use partition-alignment software to identify and fix misaligned partitions. This technique should be used during the hard drive integration process."
http://seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/ ... on_faq.pdf

"It’s not practical to make host computer systems talk in 4K native language – at least for a while. There are just too many places the 512 byte assumption is embedded. So, while hard drives will transition to 4K sectors physical sectors on the media, they will still “look and talk” like 512 byte formats to host computers. They will actually emulate 512 byte communications to hosts. This works well as long as the logical 512 byte assumptions from the host computer are aligned with the 4K sectors on the hard drive."
"It turns out that when a hard drive partition is created, the starting position can vary. A 4K drive format is set to work under the assumption that the first 512 byte sector (Logical Block Address = 0) will align perfectly with the first physical 4K sector".
"Alignment 0 ... works well for hard drives & 512 byte emulation because they can neatly map eight 512 byte logical blocks into a single sector. Sometimes hard drive partitions get created so the logical to physical alignment is off...".
"This is called Alignment 1 and it’s not so good for 4K drives when it comes to emulating 512 byte legacy sectors, especially when writing data. Essentially, this alignment can often cause a hard drive to manage a write with extra disc rotations, which slows things down. The results can be sort of dramatic as shown by these test results at HOTHARDWARE.com:
http://hothardware.com/Articles/WDs-1TB ... on/?page=2 "
"The Windows XP situation seems fairly well understood in the marketplace. What is much less understood is the situation with cloning and imaging software. System builders, integrators and IT organizations frequently rely on these tools to configure systems for sale or deployment in their organization. Even if you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, if your hard drive was partitioned with one of these utilities, you’re likely to end up with an un-aligned partition with the potential for poor performance."
http://consumer.media.seagate.com/2010/ ... ve-primer/

Video on 4K sectors:
http://www.techinsight.tv/seagate-on-4k-technology.html
http://usingwindowshomeserver.com/2010/ ... rd-drives/
Seagate manages aligment problems in the background without any interaction or knowledge of user.

BTW, a warning against 2TB hard drives:
http://www.clearfoundation.com/componen ... 489/#15489

dragonfruit
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by dragonfruit » Mon Nov 08, 2010 5:59 pm


SleepyBum
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by SleepyBum » Sun Dec 05, 2010 11:25 am

Samsung has finally posted an Advanced Format Alignment Tool for their hard drives for those people using XP/2003 without access to Vista/Win7 machines to do the partitioning or don't want to use command line to create partitions with the proper offset.

Samsung Alignment Tool

larrymoencurly
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by larrymoencurly » Sun Dec 05, 2010 11:56 am

Unfortunately Samsung hasn't posted an update to the buggy 1AQ10001 firmware:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartm ... GBadBlocks

b_rubenstein
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by b_rubenstein » Mon Dec 06, 2010 4:14 pm

I have a 2T, F4 data drive in my WHS. I installed and ran the tool (made by Acronis). It reports the drive as Not a Samsung Advanced Format Disk, and a greyed out icon for the drive indicates Optimally aligned partition.

larrymoencurly
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by larrymoencurly » Mon Dec 06, 2010 5:14 pm

b_rubenstein wrote:I have a 2T, F4 data drive in my WHS. I installed and ran the tool (made by Acronis). It reports the drive as Not a Samsung Advanced Format Disk, and a greyed out icon for the drive indicates Optimally aligned partition.
Same here, and I used Windows XP to partition and verified the misalignment.

tima
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by tima » Thu Dec 09, 2010 7:00 am

larrymoencurly wrote:Unfortunately Samsung hasn't posted an update to the buggy 1AQ10001 firmware:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartm ... GBadBlocks
Looks like there's a patch:

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/ ... msg_id=386

aztec
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by aztec » Thu Dec 09, 2010 11:14 am

installed the patch, but it gave some vague confirmation about download being completed after the flash. :?

tima
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by tima » Thu Dec 09, 2010 11:56 am

Sad to say, it doesn't update the firmware number.

mkk
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by mkk » Thu Dec 09, 2010 1:59 pm

Edit: sorry for missing the DOS info. I guess enough tools have finally gotten Windows native these days for me not to forget about this old hassle. :)

Can anyone run that patch on a 64bit Windows 7?
Last edited by mkk on Thu Dec 09, 2010 7:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

tima
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by tima » Thu Dec 09, 2010 6:00 pm

The patch requires that you boot into DOS. Fortunately, I keep a USB floppy drive around for just such an emergency.

dsrtegle
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Re:

Post by dsrtegle » Sun Dec 12, 2010 8:23 pm

Nice data. Do you have a comparison between F4 2TB/5400RPM and F3 1TB/7200RPM? I am curious as sb. told me they have the similar speed. If it is true, then why bother 7200RPM?
Flanno wrote:I bought half of dozen of these drives, originally for media but they might replace my caviar blacks now as performance is pretty decent and they run quiet (most of the time) and cool.

First off, I can hear them seek when I run the HDTune read test but they don't cause the case to hum like the blacks do or make weird seeking noises like my old F3's. They are pretty quiet. If you are transferring large files you won't hear the drive much. Lots of small files is a different matter. You will hear it, but it's NOT loud or obtrusive. I am using an 800D case which has no drive dampening. Overall happy with the F4's from an acoustic point of view. I'd say they are even quiet enough for silence enthusiasts if you suspend them or use dampening. According to Samsungs EZTool which recognises these drives there is no AAM support so no way to make the drive quieter via software. I also tried HDTune Pro which shows AAM unchecked and value set to 0. You have the options of setting it to 128 or 256. Neither seems to make a difference.

Temperature wise, they stay around 31-35 degrees C which is approx 7 to 10 degrees cooler then my caviar blacks. Like the WD Green (3 platter design), they probably don't need active cooling. The 800D drive cooling isn't the best so you can knock a few degrees off if using something like a HAF.

Regarding sector size I'm using them currently as data/media drives so I just formatted them using the windows 7 default (which is 512 bytes). If someone can show me how to format them using 4k sectors I'd appreciate it.

Now to performance. Here is a comparison I ran between the Samsung, the WD Green 2TB (WD20EARS-00MVWB0) which also has 3 x 667gb platters, and WD Black 2TB. I formatted each drive for a single partition using the default Windows 7 settings in disk manager, and copied my documents folder and pics folder to each one (About 2GB in total). Each drive was tested from the same SATA port on my Classified motherboard using the latest Intel RST drivers. Tested with latest version of CrystalDiskmark (3.0 x64 Build 2010/3/21), and did read test with latest version of HDTunePro (4.60). OS was Windows 7 Ultimate 64. Boot drive was Crucial C300 256GB SSD.

Note : I have multiple Samsung, WD Green and WD Black drives so redid the tests on those as well in case I got a dodgy Samsung. The results were negligible in each case.

Samsung
Image
Image

WD Green
Image
Image

WD Black
Image
Image

Grid
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by Grid » Fri Dec 24, 2010 1:50 pm

larrymoencurly wrote:
b_rubenstein wrote:I have a 2T, F4 data drive in my WHS. I installed and ran the tool (made by Acronis). It reports the drive as Not a Samsung Advanced Format Disk, and a greyed out icon for the drive indicates Optimally aligned partition.
Same here, and I used Windows XP to partition and verified the misalignment.
And same problem here too. I was wondering if there is another way to verify if the drive has been correctly aligned?
Drive has been formatted using live gpart from a usb pen drive.

zsero
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by zsero » Fri Dec 24, 2010 6:30 pm

I've bought one and did the patch before writing any data on it. From the first day I remember it was a quiet drive, but on the 2nd day it started to develop strange vibrations. Now it's 3x noisier than any of my WD Green drives and it has actually a louder vibration than my Seagate 7200 RPM drive! I don't know what to do now, I've read so many reviews about failing WDs, and I had a late WD20EARS with a strange cache reading problem. I think the Samsung can be a very reliable drive, but I'm really annoyed about it's vibrations now! It's actually strong enough to make my whole case resonate, a thing which was clearly a territory of 7200 RPM drives before.

gord
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by gord » Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:41 am

Hi, after reading this thread I think I know what is the AF but there is still one question unanswered for me.

Is it worth it to format the AF HDDs in Windows Vista or 7 with 4k sectors? :idea:

zsero
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by zsero » Tue Jan 11, 2011 10:43 am

gord wrote:Hi, after reading this thread I think I know what is the AF but there is still one question unanswered for me.

Is it worth it to format the AF HDDs in Windows Vista or 7 with 4k sectors? :idea:
Yes, Advanced Format HDDs must be formatted in 4k way. If not, they will produce unreliable slowdowns and they might even halt your system sometimes. Use a USB caddy and format it on _any_ Windows 7 computer/laptop!

gord
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by gord » Wed Jan 12, 2011 4:19 am

zsero wrote:
gord wrote:Hi, after reading this thread I think I know what is the AF but there is still one question unanswered for me.

Is it worth it to format the AF HDDs in Windows Vista or 7 with 4k sectors? :idea:
Yes, Advanced Format HDDs must be formatted in 4k way. If not, they will produce unreliable slowdowns and they might even halt your system sometimes. Use a USB caddy and format it on _any_ Windows 7 computer/laptop!
Hi, according to what I read here I am not sure about it. When I format the disk in Windows 7 the Allocation Unit Size is set to Default. But what is the default when all AF HDDs emulate the 512bytes towards the OS?
I am talking about it because I am not sure that it makes sense to format it using 4k because of the 512bytes emulation of the AF HDDs. I am afraid that it might cause a conversion between 4k blocks and 512B blocks when presented to OS. Therefore it might be better to format the AF HDDs with 512B blocks? The best would be to do some benchmarking but I do not have any AF HDDs yet. :?

Tzeb
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Re: SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG 2TB HD204UI/Z4

Post by Tzeb » Wed Jan 12, 2011 6:25 am

There is no "must be formatted in 4k way". This is an offset issue.

The first partition must start at a correct offset for this drive to work best, on any OS.

The only problem is with XP. If you CREATE the partion there, from Disk management, the default offset is 63, so first partition (maybe only) will start at the 63rd byte. This doesn't go well with this new drive and write speed will suck.

Win7 makes the first partition at 2048 and all is fine.

All of this is a non issue for anyone who heard about it. You can either make a partiton ore more using win7, make the same from XP and then use the simple tool samsung provides, or manually make the first partition starting at byte 64, using diskpart. The alignment tool moves the start of the first partition at 4096, so i would use diskpart, start from 64 and gain some extra space. :lol:

After that, you can format the partition(s) from any disk management using any allocation unit size you like.

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