WD Dev Department,

As stated in this thread:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop/Poor-performace-in-OpenSolaris-with-4K-sector-drive-WD10EARS-in/...

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we would like to have these drives models with a non-emulated firmware

that exposes the 4K sectors directly to the OS.

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The thing is that many Linux distros and Unix flavors already have support for that kind of disks and the 512-byte emulation is only presenting complications when trying to use the disk as is, thus forcing us to align the partitions to the correct underlying layout.

If the first goal of the emulation would be compatibility to actual or legacy OS's, then there should be no need of it if the OS is already prepared to manage the 4K sectors.

In fact, you could have the a jumper setting to activate the 512-byte emulation starting at LBA sector 64 and another setting to have the disk exposed with non-emulation at all and showing the real thing.

Just a thought that could make our lives a little easier in the *nix world.

Regards,

Leandro Vanden Bosch.