partitioning an external HD

Discussion in 'hardware' started by samy, Mar 19, 2020.

  1. samy

    samy Registered Member

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    I have a new portable 4 TB HD - Armor A85 I (USB 3.1) would like to use for back-up.
    I try to partition it to two drives using Acronis Disk Director but got the following log/ error:

    "Cannot process 'Disk 4' because its sector size is unsupported (4096 bytes)."
    how can I partition it?
    Is there any advantage having sector size 4096 VS 512 bytes (which is requested by Acronis DD)?
     
  2. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Is it a GPT or MBR disk?
     
  3. samy

    samy Registered Member

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    how can I check that?
    this drive is an external portable drive for back-up storage only
     
  4. A_mouse

    A_mouse Registered Member

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    https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/mbr-vs-gpt.html
    I would also recommend using their free partition software.
    It can do non-destructive partition resizing and can even undo most operations if you do something dumb.

    Large sector sizes can be read faster, but can be wasteful if data is not filling the whole sector.
    Most format routines will opt for bigger sectors for bigger partitions.
    This is a compromise.
    The smaller the sectors, the more will fit in a partition.
    The more sectors you have to remember, the bigger the file system data is and less space for your actual files.
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2020
  5. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Diskpart, list disk

    If it was my HD I'd make it GPT, single 4 TB partition. You can do all this in Windows Disk Management.
     
  6. samy

    samy Registered Member

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    Brian and A_Mouse
    Done and I learnt valuable subjects.
    Thanks to your prompt and kind assistance
     
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