I was recently looking for a 4Kn supported SSD for my laptop, I know it doesn’t really improve performance by a noticeable amount, I was more just looking for power efficiency, which also hasn’t really been benchmarked. So… uhh… higher number better right?
Using the Linux Hardware Database
- I have found the most luck by entering the model name (not model number) of the SSD, eg. “SN850” for a “Western Digital 1TB Black SN850”, and leaving the rest blank.
- Choose whatever result looks most like your SSD, and click on it.
- Then click on whatever probe result you feel like, I prefer to stick to the ones with a ‘works’ status. It might be best to cross reference multiple results too.
- Now on that probe’s page, scroll down to Logs, and click
Smartctl. - Under
Supported LBA Sizes, you should hopefully see (at least) two entries,512and4096. If you only see512, then the SSD does not support 4Kn. Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size:Will also tell you the LBA that the SSD is currently formatted to, which is usually the default LBA size (unless the user has changed it).
Formatting as 4Kn
Note: This will destroy any data currently on the drive!
There is a great article on the Arch Wiki for formatting as Advanced Format, but mostly:
- You would want
nvme-cliinstalled, - Use
nvme id-ns -H /dev/nvme0n1to double check it supports 4K LBAs (replacingnvme0n1with the respective device) - Then run
nvme format --lbaf=1 /dev/nvme0n1(replacing ‘1’ with the respective LBA ID)
Popular 4Kn drives
This was quickly thrown together, so it will not be detailed, complete, accurate, or up to date. I will try to keep it updated though.
| Drive | Max LBA | Default LBA |
|---|---|---|
| Western Digital 1TB Black | 4096 | 512 |
| Corsair MP600 CORE XT 1TB | 4096 | 512 |
| Crucial T700 1TB | 4096 | 512 |
| Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB | 4096 | 512 |
| Kingston KC3000 2TB | 4096 | 512 |
| Samsung 1TB 990 Pro | 512 | 512 |
| Crucial P5 Plus 1TB | 512 | 512 |
Thanks for reading!
Steve.
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