Disk Basics¶
Hard Disk Drive¶
- cylinder
- the tracks of disk platters that has same diameter
- a 3d structure looks like a cylinder without top and bottom
- sector
- the sectors of disk patters
- looks like a cut cake
- head
- basic read/write device
Solid-State Drive¶
Flash
Partition¶
Creating some logical regions on a drive to manage it.
The partition information is stored in a partition table.
MBR (Master Boot Record)¶
The traditional partition table that can be applied to most PCs that use BIOS.
- supports 32bit and 64bit systems
- supports limited number of (primary) partitions
- cannot (officially) support drives larger than 2T due to the way it addresses space
See the tables in wikipedia for the details about structures.
MBR Partitions¶
- Primary partitions
- at most 4
- Extended partitions
- uses “space” of a primary partition
- Logical partitions
- created in extended partitions
- does not count as a primary partition, can have more than 4
GPT (GUID Partition Table)¶
A partition table for UEFI devices (instead of BIOS)
- supports drives larger than 2T
- limited backward compatibility (for MBR)
Read the table in wikipedia about “Operating-system support”