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
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)
Note: This will destroy any data currently on the drive!
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 |
| Samsung 1TB 990 Pro | 512 | 512 |
| Kingston KC3000 1TB | 512 | 512 |
| Crucial P5 Plus 1TB | 512 | 512 |
Thanks for reading!
Steve.