How do I know if a Hard Drive is 512Bytes or 4ksectos?

[vettz500]

I recently built my own SandyBridge Custom Mac.
Everything works beautifully! The only issue is, I was not able to use the 500GB Segate Hard Drive that I purchased because it was a 4K Sector drive and would not work with any bootloader.
So I downgraded to my old Western Digital 80GB drive just so I can get everything up and running.
I would like to purchase a 1TB Hard Drive to use as my main drive, but I do not want to make the same mistake as last time and get a drive with 4K sectors instead of 512Bytes.

Does anyone know how to tell the difference between the 2 when buying?
If possible could you post me some links to some 1TB drives with 512byte Sectors so I know for a fact I'm getting the drive that I need?

Thanks in advanced!
-Mike

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Well the manufacturers websites should give you that info if you dig around for the technical documentation regarding any particular drive.

One I can personally recommend is the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1Tb drives (HD103SJ). I have 3 of these and they perform flawlessly, as well as being extremely quiet. They can be had quite cheaply too !

 

[Holy Triangle]

Hi guys! I was just about to purchase Seagate barracuda 1TB hard drive when found this topic. There are specs of drives http://www.seagate.com/www/en-gb/products/desktops/barracuda_hard_drives/#tTabContentSpecifications
Is it 100% true that i could not make a hackintosh with 4KB sector hard drive?
Thanks!

 

[FZ1]

Hi guys! I was just about to purchase Seagate barracuda 1TB hard drive when found this topic. There are specs of drives http://www.seagate.com/www/en-gb/products/desktops/barracuda_hard_drives/#tTabContentSpecifications
Is it 100% true that i could not make a hackintosh with 4KB sector hard drive?
Thanks!

It doesn't matter with the drive you are linking to. It has SmartAlign technology which doesn't truly align the drive but rather is controlled dynamically by the drive so it's OS agnostic. I did a review of a similar Seagate drive here where it is explained.

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Thats an informative article there, thanks for the link.

Without hijacking the OP thread too much, I wonder if any of our members have used 2 1/2 inch HDDs in their dekstop hacks / HPTC / Mini-ITX builds...

Although I have 3 excellent drives here, I have pondered this idea a few times.