This is typically done to help organize the data on the disk and to separate system files from personal files. As the name implies, this simply divides the total storage capacity of the device into smaller chunks. Most modern storage devices, like hard drives, can be partitioned into different sections. The process is still used today on both HDDs and SSDs. In the late 80s and early 90s, however, manufacturers began performing low-level formatting on HDDs at the end of the manufacturing process. By using various techniques, such as head / track sector skewing, sector interleaving, and others, some traditional floppy disks could be formatted with a capacity as high as 2 MB. However, there were various shareware and freeware programs that could effectively increase the size of the standard 1.44 MB floppy disk. This amounts to a total of 80 tracks on each side of the disk's platter, for 160 tracks overall, and resulting in a disk storage space of 1,474,460 bytes, or 1.44 MB.
In the case of the 1.44 MB floppy disk, which was the standard at that time, the low-level formatting operation created 18 sectors with a total of 512 bytes on each. In older computer systems, particularly those that used floppy disks and the earliest iterations of mechanical hard drives, all low-level formatting was completed by the disk drive's controller. In most scenarios, this process is completed long before it ever hits store shelves or the hands of consumers - but there are some cases where the user might need to format their device. Not only is this true of hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs), but it's true of memory cards, USB flash drives, floppy drives, and nearly any device that is used to store data. After a data storage device has been manufactured, it needs to be formatted before it can be used to store, retrieve, or process data.
0 kommentar(er)
