How can i determine the sector size in windows

Question

How can I determine the Physical Sector Size (e.g. if i have an Advanced Format drive with 4,096 byte sectors rather than the legacy 512 byte sectors) in Windows 7?

I know that by clicking on a file and get properties we can find out the NTFS Cluster Size, but that's not the same as the hard-drive's sector size.

Note: We ask about Windows 7 because it (and Windows Vista SP1) understand the existence of 4096 Advanced Format hard drives.

Answer 1

You want fsutil. Make sure you run Command Prompt as Admin.

C:\Windows\system32>fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo c:
NTFS Volume Serial Number :       0xf4ca5d7cca5d3c54
Version :                         3.1
Number Sectors :                  0x00000000378fd7ff
Total Clusters :                  0x0000000006f1faff
Free Clusters  :                  0x00000000000e8821
Total Reserved :                  0x0000000000000910
Bytes Per Sector  :               512
Bytes Per Physical Sector :       512
Bytes Per Cluster :               4096
Bytes Per FileRecord Segment    : 1024
Clusters Per FileRecord Segment : 0
Mft Valid Data Length :           0x00000000196c0000
Mft Start Lcn  :                  0x00000000000c0000
Mft2 Start Lcn :                  0x000000000097ffff
Mft Zone Start :                  0x000000000051f920
Mft Zone End   :                  0x000000000051f9a0
RM Identifier:        0652C3D3-7AA9-11DA-ACAC-C80AA9F2FF32

Answer 2

i wanted to expand on Chris Gessler's answer, and note that there is no known way to get the Physical sector of a drive using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), e.g. wmic.

Given that i have an Advanced Format drive (i.e. it uses 4,096 bytes per sector rather than 512):

C:\Windows\system32>fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo d:
NTFS Volume Serial Number :       0xa016d8a616d87eaa
Version :                         3.1
Number Sectors :                  0x00000000747057ff
Total Clusters :                  0x000000000e8e0aff
Free Clusters  :                  0x000000000e7b2813
Total Reserved :                  0x0000000000000000
Bytes Per Sector  :               512
Bytes Per Physical Sector :       4096

Neither WMI's DiskDrive:

wmic:root\cli>diskdrive
Availability  BytesPerSector  Capabilities  CapabilityDescriptions                                       Caption
              512             {3, 4, 10}    {"Random Access", "Supports Writing", "SMART Notification"}  ST1000DM003-9YN162 ATA Device

nor Partition:

wmic:root\cli>partition get BlockSize, StartingOffset, Name, Index
BlockSize  Index  Name                   StartingOffset
512        0      Disk #0, Partition #0  1048576

can report the underlying physical sector size. It makes sense when you realize they both report the sector size that Windows is using. It is 512 bytes per sector - the drive just happens to be different inside.

That's because only Windows 8 supports use of 4k sectors. Windows 7 understands that the drive might be 4k, and works to align it's 4k Clusters with the hard-drive's underlying 4k Sectors.

Answer 3

Windows 10 update:

There is now a sectorInfo sub-command which may provide better information:

C:\>fsutil fsinfo sectorInfo C:

LogicalBytesPerSector :                                 512
PhysicalBytesPerSectorForAtomicity :                    4096
PhysicalBytesPerSectorForPerformance :                  4096
FileSystemEffectivePhysicalBytesPerSectorForAtomicity : 4096
Device Alignment :                                      Aligned (0x000)
Partition alignment on device :                         Aligned (0x000)
Performs Normal Seeks
Trim Not Supported

Answer 4

1. Run msinfo32 in command line that should popup a GUI window called "System Information"
2. In the left pane select "System Summary->Components->Storage->Disks". This should load info of all drives in the right pane
3. Find your desired drive and check the value for "Bytes/Sector". it should say "Bytes/Sector 4096"

Answer 5

If you want to have it programmatically, you need to send IOCTL_DISK_GET_DRIVE_GEOMETRY_EX and use Geometry.BytesPerSector from DISK_GEOMETRY_EX structure

Answer 6

Powershell:

$wql = "SELECT Label, Blocksize, Name FROM Win32_Volume WHERE FileSystem='NTFS'"
Get-WmiObject -Query $wql -ComputerName '.' | Select-Object Label, Blocksize, Name

Output example:

Label            Blocksize Name
-----            --------- ----
OSDisk                4096 C:\
Windows RE Tools      4096 \\?\Volume{b042c778-cd66-4381-9312-3f4311321675}\
PS C:\>

Answer 7

You can use wmic from the command line:

C:\Windows\System32\wmic partition get BlockSize, StartingOffset, Name, Index

BlockSize  Index  Name                   StartingOffset
512        0      Disk #0, Partition #0  32256
512        1      Disk #0, Partition #1  370195176960

The BlockSize is the sector size of the drive.

Answer 8

If you really want to have it programmatically, you need to send IOCTL_STORAGE_QUERY_PROPERTY providing STORAGE_PROPERTY_QUERY with PropertyId set to StorageAccessAlignmentProperty. This gives both physical and logical sector sizes.

Note: this only works on Windows Vista and higher.