Remember the Y2K, the Year 2000 processor problem that stampeded the IT industry? Now a modernization of HDD formats could create a real hard drive snafu… 
Hard disk drive (HDD) processing will shift from the historical sector lengths of 512 to 520 byte increments to increments of 4096 bytes per sector using Advanced Format technology.
The transition to 4096 byte sectors (or 4K) will affect all software and hardware components that interact with the HDD.
When properly optimized, Advanced Format delivers performance improvements over the legacy format. On the other hand, some software apps and other operations that access the HDD may appear sluggish to users if the system has not been optimized to use Advanced Format.
While some of the hard disk drive manufacturers have already begun shipping Advanced Format drives, all manufacturers plan to change the formatting of the data stored on the media to increments of 4K bytes per sector using Advanced Format technology starting January 2011.
Go IDEMA
