2.3 HARD MAGNETIC DISKS
Magnetic disk is the most important form of secondary storage today. Disks can
take on many different form, including floppy disks, cartridge disks, and fixed-
head disks. The most common type used in mainframe computers is the hard,
moving-head disk, and it is this type that we will concentrate on.
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Figure 2.5 Magnetic tape drive characteristics.
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Figure 2.6 Half-inch magnetic tape drive. (Courtesy of Hewlett-Packard Co.)
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Hard disks are made of sheets of metal cut into disks, usually between 3.5
and 18 inches in diameter. The disks are coated with a thin layer of magnetic
material similar to that used on tape. Several disks are mounted on a common
axis or hub to form a disk pack. Typically, a half-dozen to a dozen disks are
mounted in one pack, as shown in Figure 2.7. All the surface of the pack ex-
cept the top surface of the top disk and the bottom surface of the bottom disk
are used for recording. Sometimes one surface is used for permanent tracks that
aid in positioning the heads on the other tracks. These are called servo tracks
and cannot be used for data.
The recording is done on rach disk surface a series of concentric
tracks. The tracks are separate and do not form a spiral as do the grooves of a
phonograph record. Each track is usually divided into a series of fixed-length
physical blocks called sectors. The sectors are separated by interrecord gaps.
Each sector begins with a sector address, which is unique on the disk pack, fol-
lowed by the sector data. Typically, each sector will contain a few hundred
bytes of data. The data is recorded serially on the sector, meaning that the bits
of each byte follow one another along the same track. Figure 2.8 shows how
one track might look on a disk surface.
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Figure 2.7 Disk pack.
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Figure 2.8 One track with sectors.
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The reading and writing of the tracks is performed by heads. Ususally,
there is one head for each disk surface. The heads do not touch the disk, but fly
aerodynamically a few dozen microinches above the surface. Because of the
high speed with which the disk moves past the head, contact between head and
disk is destructive to both. Thus it is imperative that such contact be avoided at
all costs.
The heads fly on a boundary layer of air that moves with the disk in much
the way a water skier "flies" on the surface of the water. Dust and other con-
taminates on the disk surface are a major cause of "head crashes." Figure 2.9
illustrates the size of serveral common disk contaminates relative to the head-to-
disk clearance. Because foreign particles on the disk present such a serious
hazard, disks are ssembled in "clean rooms" with a dust-free atmosphere and
sealed, or are supplied by the drive with a constant flow of filtered air to
prevent the entry of contaminated air.
Since there are usually a few hundred tracks on each surface, but only one
head, it is necessary to move the head from track to track to reach all the tracks.
This is done by mechanical arm to which all the heads are connected as
shown in Figure 2.10. The arm is powered by a mechanism that is designed to
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Figure 2.9 Relative size of contaminating particles and head clearance
(Courtesy of Hewlett-Packard Co.)
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Figure 2.10 Heads and arm mechanism.
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Figure 2.11 A 3.5-inch hard disk with 10 megebyte capacity. Note the arm
supporting the head.(Courtesy of Hewlett-Packard Co.)
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move the heads very precisely in a minimum of time. A hard disk with the head
supported by the arm is shown in Figure 2.10.
The heads are mounted on the arm so that they are aligned vertically with
one another. Thus if the head on the first surface is positioned over, say, track
479, all of the other heads will be positioned over track 479 on their respective
surfaces. All of the tracks that are under the heads at the same time are called a
cylinder. The se