This is an efficient way to place data on a hard disk.Īs you use a disk, however, this efficient technique becomes harder for a disk. Because the disk is empty, the computer can store the files of the application into sequential sectors on sequential rings.

So let's imagine that you install a new application onto an empty hard disk. Compared to the speed of the processor and its memory, the time it takes for the arm to move and for a sector to spin into place is an eon.īecause of fact #3, you want to minimize arm movement as much as possible, and you want data stored in sequential segments on the disk.

Hard disks are slow in computer terms.

To reach a particular sector, the hard disk moves the arm to the right ring and waits for the sector to spin into position.

The hard disk has a small arm that can move from ring to ring on the surface of the disk.

Each sector holds a fixed amount of data, like 512 bytes.

If you imagine the surface of the disk divided into rings (like the rings of a tree), and then imagine dividing each ring into pie-slices, a sector is one pie-slice on one ring. Hard disks store data in chunks called sectors.

Defrag this computer now