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I understand the typical MBR is 512B and the addressable space is 2TB (2^32 x 512B), this was related to the physical sector size of the storage device (HD) which made perfect sense, but what about IDEMA's new "Advance Format" new standard 4096B physical sector size on new storage devices... will the MBR now be 4096B with an addressable space of 16TB (2^32 x 4096B), or does it stay the same 512B?

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No, size of MBR stays 512 Bytes.

Advanced Format exposes disks with 4096B physical sector as eight 512B logical sectors which extends the limit of MBR to 17.6 TB

resourced & referenced from :

       https://superuser.com/a/866404/270195

       https://superuser.com/a/679800/270195

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  • Doesn't OS typically set the logical sector size? not the drive's controller (firmware)... Sep 21, 2015 at 19:12
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    msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/… --- 4 KB native: This media has no emulation layer and directly exposes 4 KB as its logical and physical sector size. The overall issue with this new type of media is that the majority of apps and operating systems do not query for and align I/Os to the physical sector size, which can result in unexpected failed I/Os. Sep 21, 2015 at 19:26
  • I'm almost positive the OS controls the logical not the drive's controller... but using 4k native and 4k logical changes the constructs for pretty much every application... Because right now almost every application is running using one of these new 4k sector drives is running in 512e mode (emulation-mode, 8 * 512B sectors) on the single 4k (physical sector) Sep 21, 2015 at 19:29
  • Nvm it's typically the drive controller which controls it as per --> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format#4Kn Sep 21, 2015 at 19:34
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    Still does the MBR change in 4K Native Mode? Sep 21, 2015 at 22:45

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