Request for firmware that allows for the change (acknowleged by WD is all)
http://community.wdc.com/t5/ideas/v1/ideapage/blog-id/internal_ideas/article-id/5/page/5#comments
Download location for one of the ears drives, no indication of new firmware?
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?wdc_lang=en&fid=wdsfCaviar_Green
I read this as, the community is saying it is 512b to the system already? If you have other information showing it different I am interested.
The drive can be jumpered to do a 1 sector shift , that can help with compatability issues with some OSes. The tech who sold me mine installed the jumper told me to leave it in, and he was right. I have never had any problem and I have teams of them on 2 raid controllers (intel and Highpoint) and On intel as singles. In XP and in windows 7. . I think I am the only person who never had a problem, and never sees this slowdown :-) I use Large clusters in formatting.
The Advanced format data http://www.wdc.com/global/products/features/?id=7
More AF data http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5655/p/227%2C294/c/123