Disk sector

Figure 1. Disk structures:

(A) Track
(B) Geometrical sector
(C) Track sector
(D) Cluster

In computer disk storage, a sector is a subdivision of a track (Figure 1, item A) [1] on a magnetic disk or
optical disc. Each sector stores a fixed amount of user data. Traditional formatting of these storage media
provides space for 512 bytes (for magnetic disks) or 2048 bytes (for optical discs) of user-accessible data per
sector. Newer hard drives use 4096 byte (4KB or "4K") sectors; see below for details.
Mathematically, the word sector means a portion of a disk between a center, two radii and a corresponding
arc (see Figure 1, item B), which is shaped like a slice of a pie. Thus, the common disk sector (Figure 1, item
C) actually refers to the intersection of a track and mathematical sector.
In hard disk drives, each physical sector is made up of three basic areas, the sector header, the data field and
the Error Correcting Code (ECC). The sector header contains information used by the drive for internal
synchronization as well as data identification purposes. This information includes the gap, synch byte and
address mark. The data field contains the recorded user data. The ECC field contains codes based on the data
field, which are used to check and possibly correct any potential errors that may have been introduced into
the data.
History
Early in the computing industry, the term block was loosely used to refer to a small chunk of data. Later the
term referring to the data area was replaced by sector, and block became associated with the data packets that
are passed in various sizes by different types of data streams. For example, the Unix program dd allows one
to set the block size to be used during execution with the parameter bs=bytes. This process never changes the
actual sector size of a medium; only the size of the blocks that dd will manipulate is modified.
The standard sector size of 512 bytes for magnetic disks was established with the inception of the hard disk
drive in 1956. Through a coordinated effort organized by the industry trade organization, International Disk
Drive Equipment and Materials Association (IDEMA), leading hardware and software companies started
work to define the implementation and standards that would govern sector size formats exceeding 512 bytes
to accommodate future increases in data storage capacities.
Seven year later, hard disk drives supporting 1,024-byte sectors began to be integrated into consumer
electronics devices. Portable media players and digital video cameras were the first products to utilize the
larger sector format. By the end of 2007, Samsung and Toshiba began shipments of 1.8-inch hard disk drives
with 4,096-byte sectors, the sector size designated as the next standard format for all hard drives.
Usage of 4,096-byte sectors in the computing segment started in 2008 with hard drives primarily intended for
integration into external add-on storage devices. The movement accelerated in 2010, when three of the five
hard disk drive manufacturers, Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital, began producing hard drives using the
4,096, or 4K, sector format. After having successfully defined the standard architecture for the technology,
IDEMA further united the hard drive industry to orchestrate an industry-wide transition to 4K as the new
standard sector size for all applications using hard disk drives. Under the auspices of IDEMA, the date for the
transition from 512 to 4,096 byte sectors was designated as January 2011, and Advanced Format was coined
as the industry term for all future sector formats extending beyond 512 bytes.
Because of the concentric circle arrangement of tracks, defining a sector as the intersection between a radius
and a track creates larger sectors towards the outside of the disk. However, because of the restrictions of
hardware, each sector still contained the same number of bytes. This was accomplished by reducing the bit
density of the outer sectors relative to the inner ones. Modern hard discs use zoned bit recording, where the
disk is divided into zones encompassing a small number contiguous tracks. Each zone was then divided into
sectors such that each sector had a similar physical size. Because outer zones have a greater circumference
than inner zones, they have more sectors per zone. This is known as zoned bit rate.[1]
Advanced Format Overview
Hard disk drive manufacturers identified the need for large sector sizes to deliver higher capacity points
along with improved error correction capabilities. The traditional means of achieving annual storage capacity
increases, which averaged 44 percent per year from 2000 to 2009, were projected to stagnate without
revolutionary breakthroughs in magnetic recording system technologies. However, by modifying the length
of the data field through the implementation of Advanced Format using 4,096-byte sectors, hard disk drive
manufacturers could increase the efficiency of the data surface area by five to thirteen percent while
increasing the strength of the error correction code (ECC).
The Advanced Format standard employs the same gap, synch and address mark configuration as the
traditional 512-byte sector layout, but combines eight, 512 byte sectors into one single data field. The
resulting format efficiency provides enough space to increase the ECC field from 50 to100 bytes and
accommodate more powerful ECC algorithms. The enhanced ECC coverage boosts the ability to both detect
and correct errors in the data being processed by the hard disk drive beyond the 50-byte defect length
associated with the legacy 512-byte sector format.
Advanced Format Categories
Due to the long-term usage of 512-byte sectors by computing systems and the continuing need to provide
cost-effective, high storage capacity products into the future, IDEMA and the hard disk drive manufacturers
have identified several categories of Advanced Format technologies.
Advanced Format 512e
Many host computer hardware and software components assume the hard drive is configured around 512-
byte sector boundaries. This includes a broad range of items including chipsets, operating systems, database
engines, hard drive partitioning and imaging tools, backup and file system utilities as well as software
applications. In order to maintain compatibility with legacy computing components, many hard disk drive
suppliers will support Advanced Format technologies on the recording media coupled with 512-byte
conversion firmware. Hard drives configured with 4,096-byte physical sectors with 512-byte firmware are
referred to as Advanced Format 512e, or 512 emulation drives.

The translation of the 4,096 physical format to a virtual 512-byte increment is transparent to the entity
accessing the hard disk drive. Read and write commands are issued by Advanced Format drives in the same
format as legacy drives. However, during the read process, the Advanced Format hard drive loads the entire
4,096 sector containing the requested 512-byte data into memory located on the drive. The emulation
firmware extracts and re-formats the specific data into a 512-byte chunk before sending the data to the host.
The entire process occurs with little or no degradation in performance.

The translation process is more complicated when the host system issues a write command to record data on
the drive and the data is either not a multiple of 4,096 or not aligned to a 4,096 boundary. In these instances,
the hard drive must read the entire 4,096-byte sector containing the targeted data into internal memory,
integrate the new data into the previously existing data and then rewrite the entire 4,096 sector onto the disk
media. This operation, known as Read-Modify-Write (or RMW), can require additional revolution(s) of the
magnetic disks, resulting in a perceptible performance impact to the system user. Performance analysis
conducted by IDEMA and the hard drive vendors indicates that approximately five to ten percent of all write
operations in a typical business PC user environment may be mis-aligned and a RMW performance penalty
incurred.

Proper alignment of applications and utilities interfacing with the hard disk drive can reduce performance
concerns with Advanced Format-based drives. Since alignment is determined when creating hard drive
partitions, tools that partition the drive to the proper alignment scheme used by the host operating system on
client PCs have been developed. This can help reduce the number of unaligned writes generated by the
computing ecosystem. Further activities to ready applications for the transition to Advanced Format
technologies are being spearheaded by IDEMA and the hard disk drive manufacturers.