Hard sectoring in a magnetic or

optical Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...

data storage device 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 p ...

ing which uses a physical mark or hole in the recording medium to reference sector locations. In older 8- and 5-inch floppy disks, 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 A magneto-optical drive is a kind of optical disc drive capable of writing and rewriting data upon a magneto-optical disc. Both 130 mm (5.25 in) and 90 mm (3.5 in) form factors exist. In 1983, just a year after the introduct ...

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 ...

References

*{{FS1037C Rotating disc computer storage media