Hard Disks

Low-level format- organizes both sides of each platter into tracks and sectors to define where items will be stored on the disk. Partitioning: divide hard disk into separate areas called partitions; each partition functions as if it were a separate hard disk drive. High-level format defines the file allocation table (FAT) for each part ition, which is a table of information used to locate files on the disk.

Hard Disk Drive (HDD) Components

Electromechanical
Rotating disks Arm assembly

Electronics
Disk controller Cache Interface controller

HDD Organization
Arm Assembl y
Arm Head

Spindle Cylinder

Platter

Track

HDD Organization
Typical configurations seen in disks today
Platter diameters: 3.7, 3.3, 2.6 RPMs: 5400, 7200, 10000, 15000
0.5-1% variation in the RPM during operation

Number of platters: 1-5 Mobile disks can be as small as 0.75

Read/write head
Reading Faradays Law Writing Magnetic Induction

Data-channel
Encoding/decoding of data to/from magnetic phase changes

Disk Medium Materials

Aluminum with a deposit of magnetic material Some disks also use glass platters
Eg. Newer IBM/Hitachi products Better surface uniformity and stiffness but harder to deposit magnetic material

Anti-Ferromagnetically Coupled media

Uses two magnetic layers of opposite polarity to reinforce the orientation. Can provide higher densities but at higher manufacturing complexity

Tracks and Sectors

Bits are grouped into sectors Typical sector-size = 512 B of data Sector also has overhead information
Error Correcting Codes (ECC) Servo fields to properly position the head

Installing IDE/EIDE drives

IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) supports TWO drives in a system
one master (boot disk) and one slave set master and slave using jumpers

EIDE supports FOUR drives per system

2 drives on each of 2 cables only one master, all others are slaves

IDE and EIDE drives both use 40-pin ribbon cable aligned to pin 1

Hard Drive

How Data is Organized on Disk

Tracks circular areas of the disk Length of a track one circumference of disk Over 1000 on a hard disk Data first written to outer most track Sectors Divides tracks sections On a floppy 9 sectors exits Cylinders Logical groupings of the the same track on each disk surface in a disk unit Clusters Groups of sectors used by operating system 64 sectors in one cluster

Tracks
Each side of the platters surface is divided in to so many concentric circles

The track numbering starts from 0-.

The outermost tracks is given the track number 0 and next 1, next2 and so on The innermost track will have the highest number No of tracks on a platter may range from 300-3000 Modern hard disk will have thousands of tracks on each platter

Cylinders

Same tracks on different platters or sides forms an imaginary cylinder In a hard disk the data is stored in a cylinder by cylinder method The reason is due to the single head assembly

A track & cylinder are two different things, but they are used simultaneously Total no of tracks on a side = Total no of cylinders
The cylinder numbering starts from 0-. It starts from the outermost of the platter

Sectors
It is the smallest unit of data storage (in physical geometry) It can hold up to 512 MB of data only

The sector numbering starts from 1-.

The storage capacity of the hdd will vary according to the no of sectors/track present in it

Clusters
A group of sector is called Clusters It is the smallest unit of data storage which can identified by the operating system

Tracks and sectors

Can store 512 bytes

Sector = small arc of track

Track= concentric circle

Formatting
Low level formatting done at factory
Builds the File Allocation Table (FAT) Physically scans the disk media for defects

Remember FAT is always located at Track 0 High level formatting is automatically done during installation of operating system

Operating System File Systems

DOS uses FAT Windows 3.x uses Virtual FAT Win 95 uses VFAT and FAT32 Win NT uses NTFS

Partitioning
FDISK command is used Divides hard drive into logical subdivisions which are seen by the operating system as separate logical hard disks. Hard drives divided into primary and extended partitions. The primary partition boots the system. Can have up to 4 primary partitions

Partitioning
Extended can be divided up to 23 times on disk. Partitioning disks improves disk efficiency through reduced cluster size. In DOS, Win 3x and early versions of Win 95 a hard disk over 2 GB must be divided into smaller partions Now Win 95 and Win 98 can create a primary partition of up to 8 GB Following partition, the first sector on cylinder 0 reserved for master boot record

Serial ATA
Serial ATA (SATA or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is a computer bus interface for connecting host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives and optical drives. Serial ATA was designed to replace the older parallel ATA (PATA) standard (often called by the old name IDE), offering several advantages over the older interface: reduced cable size and cost (7 conductors instead of 40), native hot swapping, faster data transfer through higher signalling rates, and more efficient transfer through an (optional) I/O queuing protocol.

 SATA host-adapters and devices communicate via a high-speed serial cable over two pairs of conductors. In contrast, parallel ATA (the redesignation for the legacy ATA specifications) used a 16-bit wide data bus with many additional support and control signals, all operating at much lower frequency. To ensure backward compatibility with legacy ATA software and applications, SATA uses the same basic ATA and ATAPI command-set as legacy ATA devices.

 As of 2009, SATA has replaced parallel ATA in most shipping consumer desktop and laptop computers, and is expected to eventually replace PATA in embedded applications where space and cost are important factors. SATA's market share in the desktop PC market was 99% in 2008.PATA remains widely used in industrial and embedded applications that use CompactFlash storage, though even there, the next CFast storage standard will be based on SATA.

Speed
original IDE drives were quite slow compared to hard drives in 2011. Transfer speeds of five megabytes per second (MB/s) increased over the years until they reached 133 MB/s. SATA drives started at 150 MB/s. Most second-generation SATA (SATA II) drives can transfer data as fast as 300 MB/s. Thirdgeneration SATA drives transfer data at speeds of up to 600 MB/s.
The

Cables
IDE drives use 40- or 80-pin cables. The 40-pin connectors are black while the 80-pin cables have a blue connector for the controller, black for the master drive and gray for the slave drive. IDE cables are limited to 18 inches in length and you can use them to connect two hard drives to the motherboard. SATA drives use a seven-pin cable, three of which are ground wires and four of which are two pairs of active data lines. SATA cables, which can be up to 39 inches long, originally only supported one hard drive. New interfaces have recently been developed, however, that support up to 32 devices.

 The large difference thus comes from the interface. In the case of discs IDE, the controller allows the connection of 2 peripherals. The band-width is thus divided between the 2. This reduces the performances. On the other hand, in serial ATA, each hard disk is connected to its own controller via his own cable. This implies that there are no more bridging to configure for the main modes/slaves. With the difference of the preceding standards, hard disks S-ATA use a connection series on 7 pins (for 40 in the case of connections ATA parallels). Four wire are used for the transfer of the data (1 signal of sending, 1 signal of reception and 2 masses). This clearly reduces the dimension of the connecting cable. The length of the cable is limited to 1 meter (against 45 cm for a ATA-133) Third difference, the discs serial ATA are hot plug, they can be connected (or disconnected) with the lit PC. All the operating systems do not authorize this function.