Background

The Western Digital "Ultrastar® DC HC530 14TB HDD" (Model number: WUH721414ALE6L4)(SATA Interface) comes only in a 512e sector size by default.

According to the 2 Western Digital documents below, "**512e models can be converted to 4Kn format and vice versa.":

a) The WD Part Number Selector (please refer to footnote 1) (https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/data-center-drives/ultrastar-dc-hc500-series/data-sheet-part-numbers-ultrastar-dc-hc530.pdf)

b) Product manual (please refer to page 17) (https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/data-center-drives/ultrastar-dc-hc500-series/product-manual-ultrastar-dc-hc530-sata-oem-spec.pdf)

However, there are NO instructions or software/utilities available from the Western Digital to perform the conversion from 512e to 4Kn sector size (in Windows 10).

I have written to the Western Digital Support Portal, but they have not provided any helpful response.

Question

Appreciate your help to advise on how to go about converting the Western Digital "Ultrastar® DC HC530 14TB HDD" from 512e to 4Kn sector size.(in Windows 10)

You need to use a program called "Hugo" by Western Digital. You can't just download it from their site, but if you contact them with a support request after 1-2 weeks someone will contact you and send you a download link.

Then what I did was the following, to change formatting for an 18TB HGST (now WD) drive from the default 512e to 4Kn

C:\Program Files\WDC\HUGO\bin>hugo s --device
     Manuf.       Model               Serial                Interface       Capacity  Type  Firmware
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1) HGST         WUH721818ALE6L4     XXXXXXX              SATA            18000 GB  HDD   PCGNW232
        Device handles: \\.\PhysicalDrive2

C:\Program Files\WDC\HUGO\bin>hugo format -g \\.\PhysicalDrive2 -b 4096 --fastformat -n max

        ******************************** WARNING **********************************
           The Format command will result in loss of data on the specified device.
           This device might be your boot device and it won't be protected.
        ******************************** WARNING **********************************

                Are you sure you want to Format this device? (Y/N) y
            
Format device on 1 Device(s)...

C:\Program Files\WDC\HUGO\bin>hugo s --device
     Manuf.       Model               Serial                Interface       Capacity  Type  Firmware
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1) HGST         WUH721818ALE6L4     XXXXXXX              SATA            18000 GB  HDD   PCGNW232
        Device handles: \\.\PhysicalDrive2

C:\Program Files\WDC\HUGO\bin>hugo s --device -b
     Manuf.       Model               Serial                Interface       Capacity  Type  Firmware
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1) HGST         WUH721818ALE6L4     XXXXXXX              SATA            18000 GB  HDD   PCGNW232
        Block Size: 4096                Native Block Size: 4096
        Device handles: \\.\PhysicalDrive2

Notice the native block size at 4096 (=4Kn) after the format