Discovering Hard Disk Physical Geometry Through Microbenchmarking
Summary
The article presents a comprehensive set of microbenchmarks to reveal the physical geometry of hard disk drives, including sectors, tracks, surfaces, skew, and zone layouts. It covers measurement techniques for RPM, angular position of sectors, track boundaries, and seek time, discusses practical challenges, and showcases results across 17 drives from 1989 to 2015, highlighting how modern disks differ in layout and performance implications.