Hard sectoring in a

magnetic Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particle ...

or optical

data storage device Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are conside ...

is a form of

sector Sector may refer to: Places * Sector, West Virginia, U.S. Geometry * Circular sector, the portion of a disc enclosed by two radii and a circular arc * Hyperbolic sector, a region enclosed by two radii and a hyperbolic arc * Spherical sector, a po ...

ing which uses a physical mark or hole in the recording medium to reference sector locations. In older 8- and 5-inch

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

s, hard sectoring was implemented by punching sector holes in the disk to mark the start of each sector. These were equally spaced holes, at a common radius. This was in addition to the index hole, situated between two sector holes, to mark the start of the entire track of sectors. When the index or sector hole was recognized by an

optical sensor A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing a physical phenomenon. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsystem that detects events or changes in its environment and sends ...

, a sector signal was generated. Timing electronics or software would use the faster timing of the index hole between sector holes, to generate an index signal. Data read and write is faster in this technique than soft sectoring as no operations are to be performed regarding the starting and ending points of tracks.

Storage formats using hard sectoring

*32 sector 8-inch floppy disks *10 sector and 16 sector 5-inch floppy disks *Numerous magneto-optical formats *

DVD-RAM DVD-RAM (DVD Random Access Memory) is a DVD-based disc specification presented in 1996 by the DVD Forum, which specifies rewritable DVD-RAM media and the appropriate DVD writers. DVD-RAM media have been used in computers as well as camcorders an ...

References

*{{FS1037C Rotating disc computer storage media