Hard sectoring in a

magnetic Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other. Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, m ...

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 Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted form ...

is a form of sectoring 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, a diskette, or a disk) is a 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 with a ...

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 often defined as a device that receives and responds to a signal or stimulus. The stimulus is the quantity, property, or condition that is sensed and converted into electrical signal. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a devi ...

, 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. 130 mm (5.25 in) and 90 mm (3.5 in) discs are the most common sizes. In 1983, just a year after t ...

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 camcorde ...

References

*{{FS1037C Rotating disc computer storage media