How can I determine the sector size in windows? - windows-7

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

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 3

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.
Update
wmic diskdrive now does show physical bytes per sector in Bytes per Sector:
C:\Windows\system32>wmic
wmic:root\cli>diskdrive
Availability BytesPerSector Capabilities CapabilityDescriptions
4096 {3, 4} {"Random Access", "Supports Writing"}
While wmic partition continues to be wrong.
Windows 10.0.19041.804

Answer 4

Run msinfo32 in command line that should popup a GUI window called
"System Information"
In the left pane select "System Summary->Components->Storage->Disks". This should load info of all drives in the right pane
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

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 7

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 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.

Answer 9

Recent powershell versions have a Get-Volume
Get-Volume | Format-Table DriveLetter, FileSystemLabel, AllocationUnitSize