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External Memory: Magnetic Disk

Magnetic disks store data on circular platters coated with a magnetizable material. Glass substrates have improved the uniformity and reduced defects of disk surfaces, enabling higher storage densities and reliability. Data is written and read via read/write heads that detect resistance changes in magneto-resistive sensors as data tracks rotate beneath them. Disks organize data into concentric tracks separated by gaps to minimize errors. Tracks are divided into fixed-length sectors for addressing individual blocks of data. While direct addressing is an advantage of this constant angular velocity format, storage capacity is not uniformly maximized across all tracks.

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32 views1 page

External Memory: Magnetic Disk

Magnetic disks store data on circular platters coated with a magnetizable material. Glass substrates have improved the uniformity and reduced defects of disk surfaces, enabling higher storage densities and reliability. Data is written and read via read/write heads that detect resistance changes in magneto-resistive sensors as data tracks rotate beneath them. Disks organize data into concentric tracks separated by gaps to minimize errors. Tracks are divided into fixed-length sectors for addressing individual blocks of data. While direct addressing is an advantage of this constant angular velocity format, storage capacity is not uniformly maximized across all tracks.

Uploaded by

angelie22
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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EXTERNAL MEMORY

Magnetic Disk
A disk is a circular platter constructed of nonmagnetic material, called the substrate,

coated with a magnetizable material.


-substrate: It can be aluminum or aluminum alloy and glass material.
*Benefits of glass substrate:
Improvement in the uniformity of the magnetic film surface to increase disk reliability
A significant reduction in overall surface defects to help reduce read-write errors
Ability to support lower fly heights (described subsequently)
Better stiffness to reduce disk dynamics
Greater ability to withstand shock and damage
*Magnetic Read and Write Mechanisms:
Data are recorded on and later retrieved from the disk via a conducting coil named the head. Most
systems has two heads namely: write head & read head.
The read head consists of a partially shielded magneto resistive (MR) sensor. The MR material has
an electrical resistance that depends on the direction of the magnetization of the medium moving under
it. By passing a current through the MR sensor, resistance changes and are detected as voltage
signals. The MR design allows higher-frequency operation, which equates to greater storage
densities and operating speeds.
*Data Organization and Formatting:
The head is a relatively small device capable of reading from or writing to a portion of the
platter
rotating beneath it. This gives rise to the organization of data on the platter in a
concentric set of rings,
called
tracks. Each track is
the
same
width
as
the
head.There are thousands of tracks per surface.
Adjacent tracks are separated by gaps.This prevents, or at least minimizes, errors due to misalignment
of the head or simply interference of magnetic fields. There are typically hundreds of sectors per
track, and these may be of either fixed or variable length. In most contemporary systems, fixedlength sectors are used, with 512 bytes being the nearly universal sector size. To avoid imposing
unreasonable precision requirements on the system, adjacent sectors are separated by intratrack
(intersector) gaps.
The information that is scanned at the same rate by rotating the disk at a fixed speed, is
called constant angular velocity (CAV).
-advantage of CAV: The advantage of using CAV is that individual blocks of data can be directly
addressed by track and sector.
-disadvantage of CAV: The disadvantage of CAV is that the amount of data that can be stored on the
long outer tracks is the only same as what can be stored on the short inner tracks.

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