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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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How data written in the platters ? From Outside to inside?

February 12th, 2019, 16:01

I mean, let's imagine a platter of an empty hard disk of 500 gb formatted. Now we introduce 100 gb in files of different sizes. Are the data written in an orderly manner from the outside of the disk or from the inside? Or anarchically?. I know that defragmentation also interferes, but in this case it's all erased and there are no previously deleted files.

If someone could recommend me an article about this I would be grateful. I do not find anything interesting ..

I imagine that maybe it depends on the brand ...

Re: How data written in the platters ? From Outside to insid

February 12th, 2019, 16:25

If you talking about FILES then it depends on operating system and file system.
For example: on Windows 7 and NTFS files most likely would be written from outside (OD) to inside (ID)
On ExtFS Linux files most likely would be evenly spread across the whole HDD

In general sector 0 is at OD and last sector is at ID

Re: How data written in the platters ? From Outside to insid

February 12th, 2019, 17:24

http://www.hdtune.com/testresults.html

Re: How data written in the platters ? From Outside to insid

February 13th, 2019, 3:21

Doomer wrote:If you talking about FILES then it depends on operating system and file system.
For example: on Windows 7 and NTFS files most likely would be written from outside (OD) to inside (ID)
On ExtFS Linux files most likely would be evenly spread across the whole HDD

In general sector 0 is at OD and last sector is at ID


Once i asked here the following Question Doomer: Is there any formula that controls writing to specific sectors? (like when you copy a file to HDD/flash)...

do you know? :?:

Re: How data written in the platters ? From Outside to insid

February 13th, 2019, 5:48

Doomer wrote:If you talking about FILES then it depends on operating system and file system.
For example: on Windows 7 and NTFS files most likely would be written from outside (OD) to inside (ID)
On ExtFS Linux files most likely would be evenly spread across the whole HDD

In general sector 0 is at OD and last sector is at ID


Thanks :)

So, it depends on operating and the file system.
but...the writing from the outside is " most likely" or "allways"?

Re: How data written in the platters ? From Outside to insid

February 13th, 2019, 6:00

I don't know what it is with all these theoretical questions lately.. but anyway. I'm sure these answer could be found by the OP with a little googling, or googling to first learn how to google. It is called going down the rabbithole.

first minute I came up with this: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/hard-drive-writing-from-outside-in-or-inside-out.415000/

next I would be looking for these documents mentioned, or something similar from a HDD vendor:

Hard drive's start on the outer track of the platters and write their way in, yes. Although it's not just a straight run across all the platters simultaneously. I think Maxtor or Quantum have a neat little explanation of how data is written across the platters.


or troll the patent sites.

search string was: hard disk written inside outside platter starting from

probably with a little thought you could refine it to find what you need/want
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