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Reformatting a hard drive to a higher capacity would be akin to overclocking a CPU. The heads and platter might operate fine at the higher capacity, or they mig
by magila 11y ago
Reformatting a hard drive to a higher capacity would be akin to overclocking a CPU. The heads and platter might operate fine at the higher capacity, or they might not. Running the risk that your HDD might be quietly losing your data is not something most people are interested in.
It's a moot point anyways because reformatting an HDD to a different capacity would be an impossibly complex endeavor. Performing a low-level format on a modern HDD requires a multi-step (and multi day!) process of burn-in and calibration. None of it is documented publicly of course. Doing this outside of the factory is far beyond the realm of possibility.
- ikeboy 11y ago>The heads and platter might operate fine at the higher capacity, or they might not. If it's literally the exact same hardware, but different firmware, then they most definitely should perform exactly the same.
- userbinator 11y agoHeads would be the same, but there's a chance that they're using the platters which have defects on them, making them unusable for higher capacities. They could be serious defects too, i.e. surface abberations that would damage the heads if they ventured into that area.
- magila 11y agoHeads and media are like silicon chips in that no two units are "exactly" the same. Yield in terms of usable capacity varies from one unit to the next just like clock rate for CPUs. When you buy an HDD it has been validated to operate correctly at the rated capacity, there's no guarantee how it may handle higher densities. Besides, unless you work at an HDD factory you have no way of knowing just how similar the parts of a particular 250GB drive are to a 1TB drive. For all you know they may have gotten a particularly dodgy lot of heads or patters which definitely can't handle 1TB.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoThe firmware on the device is a black box that controls a more complex black box in an undocumented way and where errors can break it. You don't JUST swap the firmware out. Even so, he may have meant it in the context of the onboard software and modifiable hardware (eg switch they flip at factory to permanently set behavior). Sometimes a hardware engineer will call both firmware speaking shorthand. If it was the latter, you're unlikely to change it because they blow a physical fuse (antifuse?) inside the chip. Some IP vendors are also offering encryption, tamper-sensing circuitry, and obfuscation to help chip-makers protect the systems better. They really want that extra few hundred dollars. ;)
- ikeboy 11y agoSomeone should get that guy who ran Linux on his hd on it.
- breakingcups 11y agoSee https://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack https://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack
- nickpsecurity 11y agoGood thinking, you two! The link shows that the black magic (spindle control, etc) is in a dedicated chip controlled by another chip. The "black box" controlling the "black box." I thought they'd be on the same chip and software package. That would increase risk. I didn't anticipate them putting it on a dedicated chip. It makes sense along some lines. So, that counts out at least one HD vendor from my claim. More could follow if they do something similar. Thanks for the article, too, as I enjoyed reading it.