Track (disk drive)

A disk drive track is a circular path on the surface of a disk or diskette on which information is magnetically recorded and from which recorded information is read.

A track is a physical division of data in a disk drive, as used in the Cylinder-Head-Record (CCHHRR) addressing mode of a CKD disk. The concept is concentric, through the physical platters, being a data circle per each cylinder of the whole disk drive. In other words, the number of tracks on a single surface in the drive exactly equals the number of cylinders of the drive.

Tracks are subdivided into blocks (or sectors, pages) (see: Storage block and Virtual page).

The term track is sometimes prefaced with the word logical (i.e. "3390-9 has 3 logical tracks per physical track") to emphasize the fact when used as an abstract concept, not a track in the physical sense.

See also

Disk storage

Disk storage is a general category of storage mechanisms where data are recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is a device implementing such a storage mechanism. Notable types are the hard disk drive (HDD) containing a non-removable disk, the floppy disk drive (FDD) and its removable floppy disk, and various optical disc drives and associated optical disc media.

(The spelling disk and disc are used interchangeably except where trademarks preclude one usage, e.g. the Compact Disc logo. The choice of a particular form is frequently historical, as in IBM's usage of the disk form beginning in 1956 with the "IBM 350 disk storage unit").

Background

Audio information was originally recorded by analog methods (see Sound recording and reproduction). Similarly the first video disc used an analog recording method. In the music industry, analog recording has been mostly replaced by digital optical technology where the data are recorded in a digital format with optical information.

Drive

Drive or The Drive may refer to:

Behavior and psychology

Sports

Disc

Disc or disk (computing and American English) may refer to:

Data storage

Track

Track or Tracks may refer to:

Electronics and computing

Entertainment