{"id":808,"date":"2019-01-18T13:17:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T20:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/?p=808"},"modified":"2020-01-08T11:54:37","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T18:54:37","slug":"hard-disk-tracks-cylinders-sectors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-disk-tracks-cylinders-sectors\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard Disk Tracks, Cylinders and Sectors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>All information stored on a hard disk is recorded in&nbsp;tracks, which are concentric circles placed on the surface of each platter, much like the annual rings of a tree. The tracks are numbered, starting from zero, starting at the outside of the platter and increasing as you go in. A modern hard disk has tens of thousands of tracks on each&nbsp;platter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"\"><tbody><tr><td class=\"has-text-align-center\" data-align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"600\" class=\"wp-image-809\" style=\"width: 600px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/5.25-hard-disk-platter.png\" alt=\"5.25&quot; hard disk platter\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/5.25-hard-disk-platter.png 407w, https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/5.25-hard-disk-platter-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/5.25-hard-disk-platter-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/td><\/tr><tr><td class=\"has-text-align-center\" data-align=\"center\">A platter from a 5.25&#8243; hard disk, with 20 concentric tracks drawn<br>over the surface. Each track is divided into 16 imaginary sectors.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Data is accessed by moving the heads from the inner to the outer part of the disk, driven by the&nbsp;head actuator. This organization of data allows for easy access to any part of the disk, which is why disks are called&nbsp;<em>random access<\/em>&nbsp;storage devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each track can hold many thousands of bytes of data. It would be wasteful to make a track the smallest unit of storage on the disk, since this would mean small files wasted a large amount of space. Therefore, each track is broken into smaller units called&nbsp;<em>sectors<\/em>. Each sector holds 512 bytes of user data, plus as many as a few dozen additional bytes used for internal drive control and for&nbsp;error detection and correction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"\"><tbody><tr><td><strong>The PC Guide<\/strong><br>Site Version: 2.2.0 &#8211; Version Date: April 17, 2001<br>\u00a9 Copyright 1997-2004&nbsp;Charles M. Kozierok.&nbsp;All Rights Reserved.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>This is an archive of Charles M. Kozierok&#8217;s PCGuide (pcguide.com) which disappeared from the internet in 2018.  We wanted to preserve Charles M. Kozierok&#8217;s knowledge about computers and are permanently hosting a  selection of important pages from PCGuide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All information stored on a hard disk is recorded in&nbsp;tracks, which are concentric circles placed on the surface of each platter, much like the annual rings of a tree. The tracks are numbered, starting from zero, starting at the outside of the platter and increasing as you go in. A modern hard disk has tens [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40,48],"class_list":["post-808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computerrepair","tag-hard-drive","tag-pcguide"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hard Disk Tracks, Cylinders and Sectors - Computer Repair Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-disk-tracks-cylinders-sectors\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hard Disk Tracks, Cylinders and Sectors - Computer Repair Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"All information stored on a hard disk is recorded in&nbsp;tracks, which are concentric circles placed on the surface of each platter, much like the annual rings of a tree. 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