What is the smallest accessible storage unit on a disk?

What is the smallest accessible storage unit on a disk?

• A. Track
• B. Block
• C. Sector
• D. Cluster

Answer: (C)

Data on a disk is read and written in fixed-size chunks called sectors. The disk surface is organized into tracks, and each track is subdivided into sectors. A sector is the smallest unit that can be independently accessed by the disk hardware and the file system. Larger units used by the operating system for storage management, such as clusters (or blocks), are simply groups of sectors used to allocate space for files. So the smallest accessible storage unit is the sector. Tracks are bigger circular paths on the disk, and clusters/blocks are larger aggregation units rather than the smallest addressable piece.

Data on a disk is read and written in fixed-size chunks called sectors. The disk surface is organized into tracks, and each track is subdivided into sectors. A sector is the smallest unit that can be independently accessed by the disk hardware and the file system. Larger units used by the operating system for storage management, such as clusters (or blocks), are simply groups of sectors used to allocate space for files. So the smallest accessible storage unit is the sector. Tracks are bigger circular paths on the disk, and clusters/blocks are larger aggregation units rather than the smallest addressable piece.