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Disk storage (also sometimes called drive storage) is a general category of storage
mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or
mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is a
device implementing such a storage mechanism. Notable types are the hard disk
drive (HDD) containing a non-removable disk, the floppy disk drive (FDD) and its
removable floppy disk, and various optical disc drives (ODD) and associated optical
disc media.
(The spelling disk and disc are used interchangeably except where trademarks preclude
one usage, e.g. the Compact Disc logo. The choice of a particular form is frequently
historical, as in IBM's usage of the disk form beginning in 1956 with the "IBM 350 disk
storage unit").

Six hard disk drives

Three floppy disk drives

A CD-ROM (optical) disc drive

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Background
Audio information was originally recorded by analog methods (see Sound recording and
reproduction). Similarly the first video discused an analog recording method. In the music
industry, analog recording has been mostly replaced by digital optical technology where
the data is recorded in a digital format with optical information.
The first commercial digital disk storage device was the IBM 350 which shipped in 1956 as
a part of the IBM 305 RAMACcomputing system. The random-access, low-density storage of
disks was developed to complement the already used sequential-access, high-density
storage provided by tape drives using magnetic tape. Vigorous innovation in disk storage
technology, coupled with less vigorous innovation in tape storage, has reduced the
difference in acquisition cost per terabyte between disk storage and tape storage; however,
the total cost of ownership of data on disk including power and management remains
larger than that of tape.[1]
Disk storage is now used in both computer storage and consumer electronic storage,
e.g., audio CDs and video discs (standard DVD and Blu-ray).
Data on modern disks is stored in fixed length blocks, usually called sectors and varying in
length from a few hundred to many thousands of bytes. Gross disk drive capacity is simply
the number of disk surfaces times the number of blocks/surface times the number of
bytes/block. In certain legacy IBM CKD drivesthe data was stored on magnetic disks with
variable length blocks, called records; record length could vary on and between disks.
Capacity decreased as record length decreased due to the necessary gaps between blocks.

Access methods
Digital disk drives are block storage devices. Each disk is divided into
logical blocks(collection of sectors). Blocks are addressed using their logical block
addresses (LBA). Read from or writing to disk happens at the granularity of blocks.
Originally the disk capacity was quite low and has been improved in one of several ways.
Improvements in mechanical design and manufacture allowed smaller and more precise
heads, meaning that more tracks could be stored on each of the disks. Advancements in
data compression methods permitted more information to be stored in each of the
individual sectors.

The drive stores data onto cylinders, heads, and sectors. The sectors unit is the smallest
size of data to be stored in a hard disk drive and each file will have many sectors units
assigned to it. The smallest entity in a CD is called a frame, which consists of 33 bytes and
contains six complete 16-bit stereo samples (two bytes × two channels × six samples = 24
bytes). The other nine bytes consist of eight CIRC error-correction bytes and
one subcodebyte used for control and display.
The information is sent from the computer processor to the BIOS into a chip controlling the
data transfer. This is then sent out to the hard drive via a multi-wire connector. Once the
data is received onto the circuit board of the drive, they are translated and compressed into
a format that the individual drive can use to store onto the disk itself. The data is then
passed to a chip on the circuit board that controls the access to the drive. The drive is

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divided into sectors of data stored onto one of the sides of one of the internal disks. An HDD
with two disks internally will typically store data on all four surfaces.

The hardware on the drive tells the actuator arm where it is to go for the relevant track and
the compressed information is then sent down to the head which changes the physical
properties, optically or magnetically for example, of each byte on the drive, thus storing the
information. A file is not stored in a linear manner, rather, it is held in the best way for
quickest retrieval.

Rotation speed and track layout

Comparison of several forms of disk storage showing tracks (not-to-scale); green denotes start and red denotes
end.
* Some CD-R(W) and DVD-R(W)/DVD+R(W) recorders operate in ZCLV, CAA or CAV modes.

Mechanically there are two different motions occurring inside the drive. One is the rotation
of the disks inside the device. The other is the side-to-side motion of the head across the
disk as it moves between tracks.

There are two types of disk rotation methods:

• constant linear velocity (used mainly in optical storage) varies the rotational speed of the optical
disc depending upon the position of the head, and
• constant angular velocity (used in HDDs, standard FDDs, a few optical disc systems, and vinyl audio
records) spins the media at one constant speed regardless of where the head is positioned.

Track positioning also follows two different methods across disk storage devices. Storage
devices focused on holding computer data, e.g., HDDs, FDDs, Iomega zip drives, use
concentric tracks to store data. During a sequential read or write operation, after the drive
accesses all the sectors in a track it repositions the head(s) to the next track. This will cause
a momentary delay in the flow of data between the device and the computer. In contrast,

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optical audio and video discs use a single spiral track that starts at the inner most point on
the disc and flows continuously to the outer edge. When reading or writing data there is no
need to stop the flow of data to switch tracks. This is similar to vinyl records except vinyl
records started at the outer edge and spiraled in toward the center.

Interfaces
The disk drive interface is the mechanism/protocol of communication between the rest of
the system and the disk drive itself. Storage devices intended for desktop and mobile
computers typically use ATA (PATA) and SATA interfaces. Enterprise systems and high-end
storage devices will typically use SCSI, SAS, and FC interfaces in addition to some use of
SATA.
Basic terminology
• Disk - Generally refers to magnetic media and devices.
• Disc - Required by trademarks for certain optical media and devices.
• Platter – An individual recording disk. A hard disk drive contains a set of platters. Developments in
optical technology have led to multiple recording layers on DVDs.
• Spindle – the spinning axle on which the platters are mounted.
• Rotation – Platters rotate; two techniques are common:
Constant angular velocity (CAV) keeps the disk spinning at a fixed rate, measured in revolutions
o
per minute (RPM). This means the heads cover more distance per unit of time on the outer tracks
than on the inner tracks. This method is typical with computer hard drives.
o Constant linear velocity (CLV) keeps the distance covered by the heads per unit time fixed. Thus
the disk has to slow down as the arm moves to the outer tracks. This method is typical
for CD drives.
• Track – The circle of recorded data on a single recording surface of a platter.

• Sector – A segment of a track

• Low level formatting – Establishing the tracks and sectors.
• Head – The device that reads and writes the information—magnetic or optical—on the disk surface.
• Arm – The mechanical assembly that supports the head as it moves in and out.
• Seek time – Time needed to move the head to a new position (specific track).
• Rotational latency – Average time, once the arm is on the right track, before a head is over a desired
sector.
• Data transfer rate - The rate at which user data bits are transferred from or to the medium.
Technically, this would more accurately be entitled the "gross" data transfer rate.

Disk read-and-write head

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A hard disk head and arm on a platter

Microphotograph of a hard disk head. The size of the front face is about 0.3 mm. One functional part of the head is
the round, orange structure in the middle - the lithographically defined copper coil of the write transducer. Also
note the electric connections by wires bonded to gold-plated pads.

Read-write head of a 3TB hard disk drive manufactured in 2013. The dark rectangular component is the sliderand
is 1.25mm long. The read/write head coils are to the left of the slider. Platter surface moves past the head from
right to left.

Disk read/write heads are the small parts of a disk drive which move above the disk
platter and transform the platter's magnetic field into electrical current (read the disk) or,
vice versa, transform electrical current into magnetic field (write the disk).[1] The heads
have gone through a number of changes over the years.
In a hard drive, the heads 'fly' above the disk surface with clearance of as little as
3 nanometres. The "flying height" is constantly decreasing to enable higher areal
density. The flying height of the head is controlled by the design of an air-
bearing etched onto the disk-facing surface of the slider. The role of the air bearing is to
maintain the flying height constant as the head moves over the surface of the disk. If the
head hits the disk's surface, a catastrophic head crash can result.

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Hard disk drive platter

Hard disk with platter

Inside view of a hard disk

A hard disk drive platter (or disk) is the circular disk on which magnetic data is
stored in a hard disk drive. The rigid nature of the platters in a hard drive is what gives
them their name (as opposed to the flexible materials which are used to make floppy
disks). Hard drives typically have several platters which are mounted on the
same spindle. A platter can store information on both sides, requiring two heads per
platter.
Design
The magnetic surface of each platter is divided into small sub-micrometer-sized
magnetic regions, each of which is used to represent a single binary unit of
information. A typical magnetic region on a hard-disk platter (as of 2006) is about
200–250 nanometers wide (in the radial direction of the platter) and extends about
25–30 nanometers in the down-track direction (the circumferential direction on the
platter),[citation needed] corresponding to about 100 billion bits per square inch of disk
area (15.5 Gbit/cm2). The material of the main magnetic medium layer is usually
a cobalt-based alloy. In today's hard drives each of these magnetic regions is composed

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of a few hundred magnetic grains, which are the base material that gets magnetized.
As a whole, each magnetic region will have a magnetization.
One reason magnetic grains are used as opposed to a continuous magnetic medium is
that they reduce the space needed for a magnetic region. In continuous magnetic
materials, formations called Néel spikes tend to appear. These are spikes of opposite
magnetization, and form for the same reason that bar magnets will tend to align
themselves in opposite directions. These cause problems because the spikes cancel
each other's magnetic field out, so that at region boundaries, the transition from one
magnetization to the other will happen over the length of the Néel spikes. This is called
the transition width.

Comparison of the transition width caused by Néel Spikes in continuous media and granular media, at a
boundary between two magnetic regions of opposite magnetization

Grains help solve this problem because each grain is in theory a single magnetic
domain(though not always in practice). This means that the magnetic domains cannot
grow or shrink to form spikes, and therefore the transition width will be on the order
of the diameter of the grains. Thus, much of the development in hard drives has been
in reduction of grain size.
Manufacture

Destroyed hard disk, glass platter visible

Platters are typically made using an aluminium or glass and ceramic substrate. As of
2015, laptop hard drive platters are made from glass while aluminum platters are
often found in desktop computers.[1][2] In disk manufacturing, a thin coating is
deposited on both sides of the substrate, mostly by a vacuum deposition process called
magnetron sputtering. The coating has a complex layered structure consisting of
various metallic (mostly non-magnetic) alloys as underlayers, optimized for the
control of the crystallographic orientation and the grain size of the actual magnetic
media layer on top of them, i.e. the film storing the bits of information. On top of it a

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protective carbon-based overcoat is deposited in the same sputtering process. In post-

processing a nanometer thin polymeric lubricant layer gets deposited on top of the
sputtered structure by dipping the disk into a solvent solution, after which the disk is
buffed by various processes[clarification needed] to eliminate small defects and verified by a
special sensor on a flying head for absence of any remaining impurities or other
defects (where the size of the bit given above roughly sets the scale for what
constitutes a significant defect size). In the hard-disk drive the hard-drive heads fly
and move radially over the surface of the spinning platters to read or write the data.
Extreme smoothness, durability, and perfection of finish are required properties of a
hard-disk platter.
In 1990, Toshiba released the MK1122FC, the first hard drive to use a glass substrate,
replacing the aluminium alloys used in earlier hard drives. It was originally designed
for laptops, for which the greater shock resistance of glass substrates are more
suitable.[3] Around 2000, other hard drive manufacturers started transitioning from
aluminum to glass platters because glass platters have several advantages over
aluminum platters.[4][5][6][7]
In 2005–06, a major shift in technology of hard-disk drives and of magnetic
disks/media began. Originally, in-plane magnetized materials were used to store the
bits but has now been replaced by perpendicular recording.
The reason for this transition is the need to continue the trend of increasing storage
densities, with perpendicularly oriented media offering a more stable solution for a
decreasing bit size. Orienting the magnetization perpendicular to the disk surface has
major implications for the disk's deposited structure and the choice of magnetic
materials, as well as for some of the other components of the hard-disk drive (such as
the head and the electronic channel).

Magnetic storage
This article needs additional citations for verification.

Longitudinal recording and perpendicular recording, two types of writing heads on a hard disk.

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Magnetic storage or magnetic recording is the storage of data on

a magnetized medium. Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetisation in a
magnetisable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile memory. The
information is accessed using one or more read/write heads.
As of 2017, magnetic storage media, primarily hard disks, are widely used to
store computer data as well as audio and video signals. In the field of computing, the
term magnetic storageis preferred and in the field of audio and video production, the
term magnetic recording is more commonly used. The distinction is less technical and
more a matter of preference. Other examples of magnetic storage media include floppy
disks, magnetic recording tape, and magnetic stripes on credit cards.
“Magnetic storage in the form of wire recording—audio recording on a wire—was publicized
by Oberlin Smith in the Sept 8, 1888 issue of Electrical World.””

Smith had previously filed a patent in September, 1878 but found no opportunity to
pursue the idea as his business was machine tools. The first publicly demonstrated
(Paris Exposition of 1900) magnetic recorder was invented by Valdemar Poulsen in
1898. Poulsen's device recorded a signal on a wire wrapped around a drum. In
1928, Fritz Pfleumer developed the first magnetic tape recorder. Early magnetic storage
devices were designed to record analog audio signals. Computers and now most audio
and video magnetic storage devices record digital data.
In old computers, magnetic storage was also used for primary storage in a form
of magnetic drum, or core memory, core rope memory, thin film memory, twistor
memory or bubble memory. Unlike modern computers, magnetic tape was also often
used for secondary storage.

Magnetic Disk in Computer Architecture-

• Magnetic disk is a storage device that is used to write, rewrite and access data.

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• It uses a magnetization process.

Architecture-

• The entire disk is divided into platters.

• Each platter consists of concentric circles called as tracks.
• These tracks are further divided into sectors which are the smallest divisions in the disk.

• A cylinder is formed by combining the tracks at a given radius of a disk pack.

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• There exists a mechanical arm called as Read / Write head.

• It is used to read from and write to the disk.
• Head has to reach at a particular track and then wait for the rotation of the platter.
• The rotation causes the required sector of the track to come under the head.
• Each platter has 2 surfaces- top and bottom and both the surfaces are used to store the
data.
• Each surface has its own read / write head.

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Disk Performance Parameters-

The time taken by the disk to complete an I/O request is called as disk service
time or disk access time.
Components that contribute to the service time are-

Disk Performance Parameters-

The time taken by the disk to complete an I/O request is called as disk service
time or disk access time.

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Components that contribute to the service time are-

• Seek time
• Rotational latency
• Data transfer rate
• Controller overhead
• Queuing delay

1. Seek Time-
• The time taken by the read / write head to reach the desired track is called as seek time.
• It is the component which contributes the largest percentage of the disk service time.
• The lower the seek time, the faster the I/O operation.

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Specifications
Seek time specifications include-
• Full stroke
• Average
• Track to Track

1. Full Stroke-

• It is the time taken by the read / write

head to move across the entire width
of the disk from the innermost track to
the outermost track

2. Average-

• It is the average time taken by the read

/ write head to move from one random
track to another.

Average seek time = 1 / 3 x Full stroke

3. Track to Track-

• It is the time taken by the read-write

head to move between the adjacent
tracks.

2. Rotational Latency-

• The time taken by the desired sector to come under the read / write head is called
as rotational latency.
• It depends on the rotation speed of the spindle.

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Average rotational latency = 1 / 2 x

Time taken for full rotation

3. Data Transfer Rate-

• The amount of data that passes under the read / write head in a given amount of time is
called as data transfer rate.
• The time taken to transfer the data is called as transfer time.

It depends on the following factors-

• Number of bytes to be transferred
• Rotation speed of the disk
• Density of the track
• Speed of the electronics that connects the disk to the computer

4. Controller Overhead-

• The overhead imposed by the disk controller is called as controller overhead.

• Disk controller is a device that manages the disk.

5. Queuing Delay-

• The time spent waiting for the disk to become free is called as queuing delay.

NOTE-

All the tracks of a disk have the same

storage capacity.

Storage Density-

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• All the tracks of a disk have the same storage capacity.

• This is because each track has different storage density.
• Storage density decreases as we from one track to another track away from the center.

Thus,
1. Innermost track has maximum storage density.
2. Outermost track has minimum storage density.

Important Formulas-

1. Disk Access Time-

Disk access time is calculated as-

Disk access time

= Seek time + Rotational delay +
Transfer time + Controller overhead +
Queuing delay

2. Average Disk Access Time-

Average disk access time is calculated as-

Average disk access time

= Average seek time + Average
rotational delay + Transfer time +
Controller overhead + Queuing delay

3. Average Seek Time-

Average seek time is calculated as-

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Average seek time

= 1 / 3 x Time taken for one full stroke

Alternatively,

If time taken by the head to move from one track to adjacent track = t units and there are
total k tracks, then-

Average seek time

= { Time taken to move from track 1 to track 1 + Time taken to move from track 1 to last
track } / 2

= { 0 + (k-1)t } / 2

= (k-1)t / 2

4. Average Rotational Latency-

Average rotational latency is calculated as-

Average rotational latency

= 1 / 2 x Time taken for one full rotation

Average rotational latency may also be referred as-

• Average rotational delay

• Average latency
• Average delay

5. Capacity Of Disk Pack-

Capacity of a disk pack is calculated as-

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Capacity of a disk pack

= Total number of surfaces x Number of
tracks per surface x Number of sectors
per track x Storage capacity of one
sector

6. Formatting Overhead-

Formatting overhead is calculated as-

Formatting overhead
= Number of sectors x Overhead per
sector

7. Formatted Disk Space-

Formatted disk space also called as usable disk space is the disk space excluding
formatting overhead.

It is calculated as-

Formatted disk space

= Total disk space or capacity –
Formatting overhead

8. Recording Density Or Storage Density-

Recording density or Storage density is calculated as-

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Storage density of a track

= Capacity of the track / Circumference
of the track

From here, we can infer-

Storage density of a track ∝ 1 / Circumference of the track

9. Track Capacity-

Capacity of a track is calculated as-

Capacity of a track
= Recording density of the track x
Circumference of the track

10. Data Transfer Rate-

Data transfer rate is calculated as-

Data transfer rate

= Number of heads x Bytes that can be
read in one full rotation x Number of
rotations in one second

OR

Data transfer rate

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= Number of heads x Capacity of one

track x Number of rotations in one
second

11. Tracks Per Surface-

Total number of tracks per surface is calculated as-

Total number of tracks per surface

= (Outer radius – Inner radius) / Inter
track gap

Points to Remember-

• The entire disk space is not usable for storage because some space is wasted in
formatting.
• When rotational latency is not given, use average rotational latency for solving numerical
problems.
• When seek time is not given, use average seek time for solving numerical problems.
• It is wrong to say that as we move from one track to another away from the center, the
capacity increases.
• All the tracks have same storage capacity

Magnetic-core memory
•

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A 32 x 32 core memory plane storing 1024 bits (or 128 bytes) of data.

"Core memory" redirects here. For other uses, see Core memory (disambiguation).

Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random-access computer memory for 20
years between about 1955 and 1975. Such memory is often just called core memory, or,
informally, core.
Core memory uses toroids (rings) of a hard magnetic material (usually a semi-hard ferrite)
as transformer cores, where each wire threaded through the core serves as a transformer
winding. Three or four wires pass through each core.
Each core stores one bit of information. A core can be magnetized in either the clockwise or
counter-clockwise direction. The value of the bit stored in a core is zero or one according to the
direction of that core's magnetization. Electric current pulses in some of the wires through a
core allow the direction of the magnetization in that core to be set in either direction, thus storing
a one or a zero. Another wire through each core, the sense wire, is used to detect whether the
core changed state.
The process of reading the core causes the core to be reset to a zero, thus erasing it. This is
called destructive readout. When not being read or written, the cores maintain the last value they
had, even if the power is turned off. Therefore they are a type of non-volatilememory.
Using smaller cores and wires, the memory density of core slowly increased, and by the late
1960s a density of about 32 kilobits per cubic foot was typical. However, reaching this density
required extremely careful manufacture, almost always carried out by hand in spite of repeated
major efforts to automate the process. The cost declined over this period from about $1 per bit
to about 1 cent per bit. The introduction of the first semiconductor memory chips, SRAM, in the
late 1960s began to erode the market for core memory. The first successful DRAM, the Intel
1103, which arrived in quantity in 1972 at 1 cent per bit, marked the beginning of the end for
core memory.[1] Improvements in semiconductor manufacturing led to rapid increases in
storage capacity and decreases in price per kilobyte, while the costs and specs of core memory
changed little. Core memory was driven from the market gradually between 1973 and 1978.
Although core memory is obsolete, computer memory is still sometimes called "core" even
though it's made of semiconductors, particularly by people who had worked with machines

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having real core memory. And the files that result from saving the entire contents of memory to
disk for debugging purposes when a major error occurs are still generally called "core dumps".

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