“Can the WD-P10 5TB be formatted with 4K sectors and function as a typical plain vanilla external hard drive?”
Answer This Question
1-1 of 1 Answer
Hi, Please be informed that WD_BLACK P10 Game Drive 5TB can be formatted and used as a typical external hard drive, but there are a few important details to consider regarding 4K sector formatting and general usage. Sector Size: 4K Compatibility Western Digital drives like the P10 typically use Advanced Format (AF) technology, which means: Physical sector size: 4096 bytes (4K) , Logical sector size: Often 512e (512-byte emulation). The WD_BLACK P10 is essentially a standard USB 3.2 Gen 1 external HDD, optimized for gaming but fully compatible with Windows and macOS. You can format it to NTFS, exFAT, or HFS+ depending on your operating system and use case. Please refer to the mentioned link for reference: https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/16241/ For Formatting It with 4K Logical Sectors, Please be informed that you cannot directly do it via standard Windows tools. Most consumer drives, including the P10, use 512e by default and do not support switching to 4Kn (4K native) logical sectors unless explicitly designed for enterprise use. So while the drive physically uses 4K sectors, it emulates 512-byte sectors for compatibility. If you need any assistance then please kindly open a support at (https://support-en.wd.com/app/askweb) to elaborate on the issue and, our support team will get in touch with you at the earliest.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.