Skip to main content

Evade the 512/4096 problem

Thread needs solution
Beginner
Posts: 2
Comments: 1

I've Acronis 2016, and used it but once - to replace the hard disk on my son's machine. In the course of that I found out about the 512/4096 sector incombatibility.

Now, I wish to replace my laptop's 320G drive with a 500G SSD. I haven't yet investigated the sector sizes, but I suspect the SSC is 4096. If that's the case cloning won't work. So my question is: May I make a bootable backup regardless of the sector sizes on source and destination; and if the source is 512 byte sectors will my restore to a 4096 byte sector disk boot and work OK?

0 Users found this helpful
Forum Star
Posts: 60
Comments: 1412

d e davis,

If the sector sizes are different, then your only option is to perform a backup & restore.  The backup needs to be a disk mode backup using the full partition list.  See Image below.

However, I would be surprised if the SSD had a sector size of 4096.  If it turns out that the SSD has a sector size of 512, and you proceed with a clone operation, I would still recommend performing a disk mode/full partition list backup prior to performing the clone.  This protects you if something goes wrong with the clone.

FtrPilot

 

Attachment Size
372893-131251.jpg 171.19 KB
Beginner
Posts: 2
Comments: 1

Thank you,sir - your reply was just what I've been looking for. Yes, there are a number of things that I need to do, and the first one is to find an USB enclosure so I can mount and format the SSD.

Forum Star
Posts: 60
Comments: 1412

Personally, I like the EZ dock 3 by Kingwin...link below.  It will hold a standard 3.5 inch drive and a standard 2.5 inch drive....the drives drop in/out...much easier than an enclosure.

https://www.amazon.com/Kingwin-2-5-Inch-3-5-Inch-Clone-EZD-2537U3/dp/B0…

 

Forum Hero
Posts: 59
Comments: 9378

Most current day SSD drives do come formated as 4096 sector drives.  A 512 sector backup image will restore fine to them becasue Acronie True Image will make appropriate adjustments to make it work.

The Clone, because it is a bit for bit copy of one drive to another drive, will fail because of the 512/4096 difference.