| Author |
Message |
Bruce Morgen
Guest
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 Posted:
Sat Oct 30, 2004 10:32 pm Post subject:
When to low-level format |
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Back in the day, it was
pretty normal to do a
low-level format
whenever a drive's
physical orientation
was changed (e.g. from
or to sideways) or when
switching to a
different controller
brand/model. Now that
drives are speced to run
in any orientation, even
upside like they're
mounted in my late '90s
HP workstation, is this
still a good idea?
Thanks in advance for
your wisdom!
.................................................................
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Phil Barila
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Oct 31, 2004 7:54 am Post subject:
Re: When to low-level format |
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"Bruce Morgen" <editor@juno.com> wrote in message
news:j6n7o093fvudik1jna4kagd41ae7s8rp8j@4ax.com...
| Quote: | Back in the day, it was
pretty normal to do a
low-level format
whenever a drive's
physical orientation
was changed (e.g. from
or to sideways) or when
switching to a
different controller
brand/model. Now that
drives are speced to run
in any orientation, even
upside like they're
mounted in my late '90s
HP workstation, is this
still a good idea?
Thanks in advance for
your wisdom!
|
Back in the day, they used stepper motors for the head positioner. Because
they tended to drift over time, with wear and temperature, even if you
didn't change the orientation, the center of any given track usually wasn't
where it used to be. This is why spinrite exists. When you tipped the
drive on edge or upside down, it changed even more. This is why a LLF was a
good thing, back in the day.
Now, the disks all have the servo marks on the media, and they use the heads
to tell them where they are, no matter what the orientation. An LLF is
mostly useful for changing the size of the sectors, so if you have a disk
that's 512/sector, and want to put it in a RAID that takes 520, you can.
There are probably other uses, but I'm not remembering them at the moment.
Phil
--
Philip D. Barila Windows DDK MVP
Seagate Technology LLC
(720) 684-1842
As if I need to say it: Not speaking for Seagate.
E-mail address is pointed at a domain squatter. Use reply-to instead. |
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oombas
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Oct 31, 2004 12:50 pm Post subject:
Re: When to low-level format |
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Bruce Morgen wrote:
| Quote: | Back in the day, it was
pretty normal to do a
low-level format
whenever a drive's
physical orientation
was changed (e.g. from
or to sideways) or when
switching to a
different controller
brand/model. Now that
drives are speced to run
in any orientation, even
upside like they're
mounted in my late '90s
HP workstation, is this
still a good idea?
Thanks in advance for
your wisdom!
|
The only reason to low-level format nowadays is to be sure all the data
is erased.
All orientations are mostly OK, I never mount a drive upside-down.
OB |
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Bruce Morgen
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:56 am Post subject:
Re: When to low-level format |
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oombas <etcetera@ditnietkabelfoon.nl> wrote:
| Quote: | Bruce Morgen wrote:
Back in the day, it was
pretty normal to do a
low-level format
whenever a drive's
physical orientation
was changed (e.g. from
or to sideways) or when
switching to a
different controller
brand/model. Now that
drives are speced to run
in any orientation, even
upside down like they're
mounted in my late '90s
HP workstation, is this
still a good idea?
Thanks in advance for
your wisdom!
The only reason to low-level format nowadays is to be sure all the data
is erased.
All orientations are mostly OK, I never mount a drive upside-down.
There's no choice if you |
want to use the internal
bays of the HP Vectra XU
and XW boxes -- it's the
way the case was designed.
Maybe some sort of
rattling kludge with wire
ties......:-)
.................................................................
Posted via TITANnews - Uncensored Newsgroups Access
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oombas
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:42 pm Post subject:
Re: When to low-level format |
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Bruce Morgen wrote:
| Quote: | oombas <etcetera@ditnietkabelfoon.nl> wrote:
The only reason to low-level format nowadays is to be sure all the data
is erased.
All orientations are mostly OK, I never mount a drive upside-down.
There's no choice if you
want to use the internal
bays of the HP Vectra XU
and XW boxes -- it's the
way the case was designed.
Maybe some sort of
rattling kludge with wire
ties......:-)
|
Strange construction.
I have seen them in my role as support-engineer for installing weird
software or retrieving lost data.
Maybe my opinion is outdated for current drives, but never fault.
As for 'when to format a drive' I stick to my suggestion :-)
OB |
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Folkert Rienstra
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:33 am Post subject:
Re: When to low-level format |
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"oombas" <etcetera@ditnietkabelfoon.nl> wrote in message news:418756fc$0$267$58c7af7e@news.kabelfoon.nl
| Quote: | Bruce Morgen wrote:
oombas <etcetera@ditnietkabelfoon.nl> wrote:
The only reason to low-level format nowadays is to be sure all the data
is erased.
All orientations are mostly OK, I never mount a drive upside-down.
There's no choice if you
want to use the internal
bays of the HP Vectra XU
and XW boxes -- it's the
way the case was designed.
Maybe some sort of
rattling kludge with wire
ties......:-)
Strange construction.
I have seen them in my role as support-engineer for installing weird
software or retrieving lost data.
Maybe my opinion is outdated for current drives, but never fault.
As for 'when to format a drive' I stick to my suggestion :-)
|
To erase all data is never a reason to LLF.
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Bruce Morgen
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Nov 04, 2004 10:48 am Post subject:
Re: When to low-level format |
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"Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote:
| Quote: |
"oombas" <etcetera@ditnietkabelfoon.nl> wrote in message news:418756fc$0$267$58c7af7e@news.kabelfoon.nl
Bruce Morgen wrote:
oombas <etcetera@ditnietkabelfoon.nl> wrote:
The only reason to low-level format nowadays is to be sure all the data
is erased.
All orientations are mostly OK, I never mount a drive upside-down.
There's no choice if you
want to use the internal
bays of the HP Vectra XU
and XW boxes -- it's the
way the case was designed.
Maybe some sort of
rattling kludge with wire
ties......:-)
Strange construction.
I have seen them in my role as support-engineer for installing weird
software or retrieving lost data.
Maybe my opinion is outdated for current drives, but never fault.
As for 'when to format a drive' I stick to my suggestion :-)
To erase all data is never a reason to LLF.
Yeah, I have a couple of |
utilities that will wipe
all the data much faster
than waiting around for a
format unit to finish.
.................................................................
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